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BY JACKLYN LAMBERT

Consumer Education PR

If you’re looking to watch a local sporting event, you may need to start saving your money. Remitly analyzed the average ticket prices of 141 US teams spanning across football, soccer, baseball, basketball and ice hockey, to determine the cheapest and most expensive states to watch professional sports.

With that in mind, Tennessee ranked No. 77 nationally with an average sports ticket of $175. Here are the average sport ticket prices for the state: ;Football: $279; Basketball: $212; Ice hockey: $140; and Soccer: $68

Remitly, a leading digital financial services provider for immigrants and their families, has conducted a data study which reveals that the Eastern US state of Massachusetts is the most expensive state to watch professional live sport in, with the highest average single game ticket cost of $236. 

With an estimated 159 million people in the US watching live sports at least once a month and 70 percent of Americans saying they are sports fans, live sport is big business. Following a sports team offers a sense of community and belonging – so whether you’re born in the US or have moved there from another country, there are millions of people around the world seeking out an opportunity to experience the highs and lows of professional sports in the US. 

With this in mind, Remitly analyzed ticketing data from the five most popular male team sports in America to discover which states have the cheapest and most expensive tickets. This was revealed by counting the mean average of home game tickets available across teams in each state for professional leagues in soccer, American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey. Only states who have at least three professional teams across three different sports were included in the analysis. 

Home to a population of nearly seven million residents, Massachusetts is a popular state to live in or relocate to thanks to its rich and varied history, top-notch education and natural beauty. It also contains five professional men’s sports teams across all five sports analyzed, most of which are based in Boston. Sports fans in Massachusetts are passionate and dedicated – and pay the highest average ticket cost to watch their teams in many iconic stadiums, with an average single game ticket cost of $236.   

Sport and New York famously go hand in hand, so perhaps unsurprisingly the Empire State has the second most expensive average ticket price at $198. Florida ranked in third spot, having made great strides in attracting star names to its Fort Lauderdale based soccer franchise, making it the most expensive city on average to watch a live soccer game.        

In contrast, the cheapest seats in the US can be found in Michigan. All four of its professional male sports teams can be found in Detroit, where the average ticket price across American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey in the state is just over $100. Georgia, Ohio and Texas were the next cheapest states on average.

When comparing across the five sports analyzed, American football has the highest average ticket prices of $297. To watch a live basketball match averages $165, ice hockey $146 and soccer $105. The cheapest of the five sports analyzed was baseball, known affectionately as

‘America’s favorite pastime’, and the average price for a single game ticket across the 29 US teams in baseball is $79. 

Ollie Cassel, Head of Growth Marketing at Remitly commented: “Sport is a great unifier, bringing together a huge variety of people from different backgrounds and nationalities. Whether you live in the US already or are planning on moving there, it’s highly likely you’ll want to catch some live sport to experience the sheer thrill of watching athletes at the peak of their powers achieving incredible feats in a host of iconic stadiums. 

“Sport is also big business and ticket prices reflect that. Ticket prices vary based on how close to the action you want to be, as sitting in the bleachers at baseball can cost as little as $5, but our study revealing average prices show the kind of price you can expect to pay per state if you want a piece of the sporting action.”