2025 Game Times

[Gwreck]

Mets announced start times for 2025 home games:

Notable:
Home opener is Friday, April 4 with a 3:10 start
Sunday May 25 vs Dodgers is a 7:10 ESPN game.
Memorial Day, May 26, is a 4:10 start vs. White Sox.
Friday, July 4 is a 3:10 PM start vs Yankees.
Sunday, August 17 is a “home game” in Williamsport, PA against the Mariners. 7:10 start.

All Saturday games start at 4:10 except:
-Saturday April 5 vs. Toronto. 7:10 start (because home opener is a Friday)
-Saturday May 10 vs Cubs. 7:15 start.
-Saturday May 24 vs Dodgers. 7:15 start.

Everything else is the standard 7:10 weeknight/1:40 Sunday/1:10 mid-week getaway day schedule.

Of course, another game or two on Sunday could be changed to a night game per usual practice.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Presale individual tickets went on sale this morning. Use Mets.com/presale and Mets25 discount code.

Got a whole season of Tuesday Night games (12 games excluding the April 8 game which will be freezing) in the second row of 514 (directly behind home plate) for $683 or $341.50 per ass. Highest price for any game was $26 to see the Phillies.

That sounds like a bargain does it not?

[Gwreck]

That’s well done. Mets have really leaned into ticket scaling for weekend games but weeknights remain a good value.

As an example: the same seat for the Tuesday June 10 game against Washington is 55% more expensive for the Saturday June 14 game against Tampa.

[Fman99]

Presale individual tickets went on sale this morning. Use Mets.com/presale and Mets25 discount code.

Got a whole season of Tuesday Night games (12 games excluding the April 8 game which will be freezing) in the second row of 514 (directly behind home plate) for $683 or $341.50 per ass. Highest price for any game was $26 to see the Phillies.

That sounds like a bargain does it not?

I think so. If I lived within mass transit distance of the ballpark I'd likely do something like this as well.

[bmfc1]

ESPN announced some of the Sundays they will screw up. At least we don't have to worry about this until May:
https://espnpressroom.com/us/press-rele ... -unveiled/

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, nothing until May, but then two in a row and three weeks out of six

May 18 @ Yanx
May 25 hosting LAD
June 22 @ Phils
-----
Then 'hosting' the Mariners in Williamsburg PA on August 17



Second half of the year has not yet been set, but there are sure to be some and even more (and with less advanced notice) if the team is doing well.

[DocTee]

I went to one (two?) noon starts this year and really really liked it. Wish they had some of those in 25.

[kcmets]

Then 'hosting' the Mariners in Williamsburg PA on August 17

This might be fun, but I imagine it's a hot ticket...
https://www.mlb.com/events/little-league-classic

[bmfc1]

I went to one (two?) noon starts this year and really really liked it. Wish they had some of those in 25.

They still might as the ROKU games haven't been announced.

[bmfc1]

Here are the start times for every team:
https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-2025-game-times-released

[Gwreck]

Second half of the year has not yet been set, but there are sure to be some and even more (and with less advanced notice) if the team is doing well.

There is annual limit of 5 appearances per team in the Sunday night slot.

[Frayed Knot]

Some stuff on game times in general: basically that MLB games are starting earlier, ending earlier, and are shorter in duration.

- so where the 7PM was long the norm, 2024 saw 41.7% of weekday games start prior to 7PM. In 2025 that'll be up to 62.8%

- time of games: 2021 = 3:10; 2022 = 3:04; 2023 (first year of new rules) = 2:40; 2024 = 2:36

- 2021 weekday games ending prior to 10PM = 44.7%; 2024 weekday games ending prior to 10PM = 87.8%

- 2021 ending prior to 9:30PM = 24%; 2024 games ending prior to 9:30PM = 59.1%


And in what may or may not be a related statistic, MLB attendance in 2024 was the highest in seven years

[Gwreck]

There’s not much evidence to suggest any long-term attendance trends are linked to start times. Game length? Maybe, although attendance was fairly steady through the 2000s and 2010s as the average game length went up.

Overall, attendance since 1998 hasn’t changed all too much (70.6 M in 1998; 71.3M in 2024). Attendance did drop off from 72.6M in 2017 to 68.5 in 2019, and 2023 it was back to 70.7

This is not to say the pitch clock and faster games aren’t good (they are) but it’s much harder to say the start times matter much.

Separately, and since I was curious, teams that use 7:05/7:10/7:15 start times on weekdays:

Teams with year-round 7:05/7:07/7:10/7:15 (local) weekday start times:
Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, New York (both), Sacramento, Tampa, Texas, Toronto

A bunch of teams (Baltimore, Detroit, Miami, Milwaukee, Kansas City, San Francisco, Seattle) have post-7 start times on Fridays, and earlier Mon-Thu.

Boston, Cincinnati, and the Cubs do post-7 start times in the summer and earlier in April/May/September.

[Frayed Knot]

There’s not much evidence to suggest any long-term attendance trends are linked to start times. Game length? Maybe, although attendance was fairly steady through the 2000s and 2010s as the average game length went up.

My main suggestion was to possibly tie attendance to length of games. But it's certainly possible that earlier start times, when combined with snappier games and the increased likelihood that games will be over by or before 9:30, is A factor in the recent uptick in the turnstiles.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

The puzzling thing is the Mets don't draw.

[Frayed Knot]

Yup! 11th of 15 in the NL last year.
The 0-5 start and the disaster that was the month of May certainly didn't get things off to a good start.
But you'd think a 49-32 2nd half with all the nail biters down the stretch would have helped make up more ground.

[Fman99]

Yup! 11th of 15 in the NL last year.
The 0-5 start and the disaster that was the month of May certainly didn't get things off to a good start.
But you'd think a 49-32 2nd half with all the nail biters down the stretch would have helped make up more ground.

It's stupid expensive there. Twenty five dollars to park your car and $18 beers. A good team doesn't make a family experience there any cheaper.

[Gwreck]

Attendance is typically correlated to the prior year’s performance and less to the current year. Mets drew better in 2006 than 2007; better in 2016 than 2015; better in 2023 than 2022.

[bmfc1]

May 11, Sunday v. CHC, is now 11:35 AM for Roku.

[ashie62]

I used to enjoy seeing attendance figures in the Sporting News way back

Mets attendance of late

2024 2,329,299
2023. 2,573,555
2022 2,564,739
Covid
2019 2,442,532

Shea

2008. 4,042 xxx
2007. 3,853
2006. 3,379

I wonder if people are less likely to go out to a game with a similar mindset of getting Doordash rather than going out to a restaurant

What is the cost of going to Citi by as a family of four by car getting game day tickets with parking and some food?

I've lost track but is it that prohibitive?

I did see something about a Citifield average of $197 to over $500 for a family of four

[Gwreck]

What is the cost of going to Citi by as a family of four by car getting game day tickets with parking and some food?

I've lost track but is it that prohibitive?

What is “prohibitive?”

Say you wanted to go on Saturday, May 31 against Colorado. Weekend games cost more (and higher still for premium opponents — Yankees, Dodgers, Braves) but this is still a weekend game during the nice weather. 4 seats, upper level, but on the infield: $227 with all the fees. $40 weekend parking. 4 hot dogs, 2 popcorns, 2 sodas, 2 beers, 2 ice creams: about $100, maybe $110.

Obviously there are ways to make it cheaper: weekday games cost less for tickets and parking; Mets let you bring in food and sealed drinks if you don’t want to go nuts at the concession stand; you might live in NYC and can the subway to the game instead.

So, maybe $375 all-in for a family of 4? Is that prohibitive to go once, maybe twice a season?

I don’t have a family of 4 so can’t really say, and of course if Mom’s a hedge fund exec it’s a lot different than if Dad got laid off and the family’s trying to get by on $45k a year.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Putting aside whether or not that's affordable, because YMMV and everybody's financial situation is unique to them, $100.00 to sit in the uppermost level and have one hot dog and a drink ( and not one of the fancier hot dogs, but the most basic one that they have) is not a heckuva lot of bang for your buck. When I was a kid, you could have gotten all of that at Shea for about three or four bucks.

[ashie62]

What is the cost of going to Citi by as a family of four by car getting game day tickets with parking and some food?

I've lost track but is it that prohibitive?

What is “prohibitive?”

Say you wanted to go on Saturday, May 31 against Colorado. Weekend games cost more (and higher still for premium opponents — Yankees, Dodgers, Braves) but this is still a weekend game during the nice weather. 4 seats, upper level, but on the infield: $227 with all the fees. $40 weekend parking. 4 hot dogs, 2 popcorns, 2 sodas, 2 beers, 2 ice creams: about $100, maybe $110.

Obviously there are ways to make it cheaper: weekday games cost less for tickets and parking; Mets let you bring in food and sealed drinks if you don’t want to go nuts at the concession stand; you might live in NYC and can the subway to the game instead.

So, maybe $375 all-in for a family of 4? Is that prohibitive to go once, maybe twice a season?

I don’t have a family of 4 so can’t really say, and of course if Mom’s a hedge fund exec it’s a lot different than if Dad got laid off and the family’s trying to get by on $45k a year.

That's reasonable. I used to bring in a full meal for four at Shea and I'm sure that can no longer be done

[Gwreck]

I used to bring in a full meal for four at Shea and I'm sure that can no longer be done

Why are you sure of that?

I just wrote above that the Mets let you bring in food. There are some commonsense restrictions (no fruit that can be a projectile, no alcoholic drinks) but this is one of the areas that the Mets have generally been quite fan-friendly over the years.

[Fman99]

I literally attend one game per year. It's not just the parking, and concessions, but also the trip to the souvenir shop for tee shirts and hats, and the gas, and the time spent getting in and out of Flushing.

It's all a big ol dick punch and if I lived closer, or thought I could figure out a way to make it cheaper, I'd likely go more often. But the reality is that I have to either a) pay for a hotel, to extend the trip over two days, or b) spend 11 hours in my vehicle, there and back, to attend a game.

The biggest thing I've figured out to help myself, over the last few years, is which ticket reseller will get me the best price on admission. Because for the games I attend, I can sleep on the actual ticket purchase until 24-48 hours before the game, and then go to TickPick and find good deal on seats.

Last year I bought five seats (we brought my mother in law along) for an upper deck, infield seat block, at a weekday matinee, and including fees I think I spent $70 for our seats, which I found very reasonable.