Phillies-Diamondbacks NLCS Tickets In Arizona Are Less Than $20

PHILADELPHIA, PA — The Phillies have taken the first two games of the National League Championship Series at home in Philadelphia, and now they're headed across the country to play the next two or three in Arizona.

Red October fever is following them.

The same fever that pumped millions into the Philadelphia economy and at equal turns deafened and terrified opposing teams and visiting national media is headed to the desert. And it turns out, it'll be cheaper for Phillies fans to travel all the way to Phoenix, buy a ticket, and fly back, than it would be to catch one night of bedlam at the Bank.

Tickets for the NLCS Game 3 at Chase Field were going for less than $20 on resale sites like Stubhub late Wednesday morning. Tack on an expensive, last minute $470 flight, and it's still significantly less than the average ticket to Games 1 or 2 in south Philadelphia.

That last bit shouldn't be surprising: it was also cheaper for Phillies fans to fly down and back to Atlanta and pay for a game in the NLDS — against the team with the best regular season record and a long history of a relatively strong fanbase — than to catch a home game.

Seats behind the dugout, typically among the most coveted in the house, can be bought for as little as $325.

"Phillies fans about to take over another ballpark," WIP's Jon Johnson said.

To be fair to Arizona, an upstart team who took down a powerful Dodgers squad in three games in the NLDS, they are an expansion team that has only existed since 1998. Phoenix is a growing city with a growing fanbase, and it's perhaps unfair to ever expect they'd compete with the big east coast cities, nevermind the wildest phanatics of them all.

Still, the Phillies need two more wins to seal the deal, and they can look forward to likely more than a few Red October faithful in the thin desert air.

The same could not be said for the Diamondbacks during their unsuccessful visit to Philadelphia this week. A Phoenix TV station spent "almost two hours" looking for a visiting Diamondbacks fan in south Philly Wednesday night, and was unsuccessful. "No, we didn't find a single Diamondbacks fan," an incredulous and even slightly amused Phoenix reporter told broadcasters back in the studio.