Sky-high prices for 49ers playoff tickets

There are two things that a die-hard sports fan never wants to see get raised:  The price of your favorite beer on tap, and the price of your team’s playoff tickets.

And the Niner Nation is no exception.

Fans hoping to score tickets to the 49ers first playoff appearance since 2002 no doubt hit a road block, as general admission tickets sold out within a half an hour. What was left on resale sites was a scatter of tickets with astronomical prices.

Like, $5,000 astronomical. No joke.

After being stalled and put on hold by Ticketmaster Tuesday morning, fans were redirected to a Ticketmaster/NFL-run site, where tickets ranged from $94 to $395.

Seriously, $395. That’s around one week’s paycheck if you work 40 hours for minimum wage.

And StubHub—which boasted the $5,000 ticket—sold its most expensive seat for $2,500, and its least expensive went for $175.

1-to-the-7-to-the-5.

I have designer purses that don’t cost that much.

One 49er fan interviewed said that he had to choose between buying a ticket and buying diapers for his kids. If that isn’t a sign of living in a crappy economy with heavily overpriced goodies, I don’t know what is.

StubHub spokeswoman Joellen Ferrer claims that the lack of a playoff berth in so many years is what has driven up the prices. It’s what Ferrer calls the “starvation factor.”

Here’s a starvation factor for you: Die-hard non-season-ticket-holders not eating for a week-and-a-half because they spend all their money on playoff tickets.

So I say “three cheers” to all those fans that will be like me: Bumping elbows at the bars and huddling around their TV sets. Where we’ll still have money to buy our game-time brews for three bucks without emptying five grand from our wallets.