Racking Up the Fees: Extra Sports Ticket Charges

Great deals on game-day tickets can be hard to come by, especially when the ticket sites you buy from tack on all their extra charges and fees. Some of these ticketing services can tack on as much as $60 on top of the original ticket price they advertised, making more money come out of your wallet.

After all the shipping fees and other charges added on, it’s a whole different ball game in pricing. We’ve done the research on each of TopTenREVIEWS best Online Sports Tickets sites and what kinds of fees they charge. After looking at the chart below, some of the results may surprise you, making you wonder if you're really getting such a good deal after all.

Name Game

The names vary and the explanations of the reasons for the charges vary too, but they all end up meaning the same thing. You have to shell out more cash. From the “Connection Fee” Razor Gator charges to the service charges on many of the other websites, these are just more ways for these sites to profit from your purchases. We understand that these sites have to make money too, but sometimes it just seems like they keep randomly adding fees and simply changing the names.

The Results

For our research, we decided to check out the prices on the Oakland Raiders vs. New England Patriots NFL game on December 14th. For every website, we looked at the same ticket and for a pretty good seat–right on the 50-yard line, over the Raiders’ tunnel.

The fees vary with different tickets because, for the most part, they are based on a percentage of the original base price you see when you first find each ticket. We went with this seat because it seems to be in the mid-price range for tickets to this game. Now you can know what kinds of fees you will be paying to attend those must-see NFL games.

From what we found, Ticketmaster, our No.1 online sports tickets site, also had the lowest fees tacked on top of the ticket - especially because we went with the option to print the tickets ourselves, which is not only more convenient, but costs less, too.

* Service fees have different names on different sites. Some sites call it Commission, Connection fees, and Convenience charges. We've combined it all into one name for convenience.

If you want to check out more ticket prices, check out TopTenREVIEWS best Online Sports Tickets sites to get the best deals to the best events out there.