$355,000 for a Tennis Ticket? How Fans Got Priced Out of the 2024 Wimbledon Final
On Sunday, July 14, 2024, Centre Court saw one of the most iconic Wimbledon finals in years, Carlos Alcaraz vs Novak Djokovic. A generational clash. A packed stadium. And for most fans, a brutal lesson in how broken sports ticketing really is.
The Face Value Fantasy
The average face value tickets for the Wimbledon final were priced at: £270 ($340). But getting these tickets wasn’t about timing, it was about luck. Tickets were distributed through a lottery system, and those lucky enough to win were able to attend one of the biggest matches in tennis history at face value.
Everyone else had one option: the resale market.
A Matchup That Broke the Market
As the tournament progressed, ticket prices on secondary platforms started to climb:
In the early rounds, resale tickets hovered between $900 and $1,200, already several times above face value.
Once both Alcaraz and Djokovic reached the semifinals, prices began to spike.
And when the final was officially confirmed, the market exploded. The minimum get-in price for a seat hit $10,000, and premium seats sold for over $355,000.
A tweet from Darren Rovell summed it up:
What Fans Could’ve Paid with TicketLock
With TicketLock, fans don’t need luck. They don’t need to speculate. They just lock the matchup they want and only pay if it happens.
For Wimbledon 2024:
A fan could have locked in Alcaraz vs Djokovic weeks earlier
Purchased a $40 Lock
If the final occurred (it did), they’d pay $340 for the ticket at face value
If it didn’t, they’d just forfeit the Lock fee
So What’s the Real Problem?
The current system punishes fans with:
Random lotteries that leave most people out, with bot accounts usually getting all the tickets
Resale markets that skyrocket based on hype, not access
No way to plan around what fans actually care about, the matchup
Meanwhile, those who profit from resale get all the power and fans are left with the most expensive game of chance in sports.
The Big Picture
The 2024 Wimbledon final gave us everything we could’ve asked for on the court, but it also exposed how broken things are off it. TicketLock was built to change that. A system where fans can finally plan around what they care about: the matchup. Fair. Flexible. And for once, made with fans in mind.
—
The TicketLock Team
