The Finding
We took the cheapest parking rate we list for a car at every venue in the four leagues and put it next to the cheapest ticket we list at the same venue.
At 20 of the 124, parking costs more than the seat.
Eleven of the twenty are MLB ballparks, six are NBA arenas and three are NHL arenas. Not one is an NFL stadium, for a plain reason we will get to.
| Venue | Team | Cheapest parking | Cheapest ticket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coors Field | Rockies | $18 | $7 |
| Dodger Stadium | Dodgers | $40 | $20 |
| Nationals Park | Nationals | $20 | $12 |
| Citizens Bank Park | Phillies | $30 | $18 |
| PNC Park | Pirates | $15 | $10 |
| Comerica Park | Tigers | $15 | $10 |
| Oracle Park | Giants | $25 | $18 |
| Globe Life Field | Rangers | $25 | $18 |
| loanDepot park | Marlins | $10 | $8 |
| Rate Field | White Sox | $10 | $8.50 |
| Rogers Centre | Blue Jays | C$20 | C$18 |
| American Airlines Center | Mavericks | $40 | $25 |
| Ball Arena | Nuggets | $35 | $25 |
| Xfinity Mobile Arena | 76ers | $35 | $30 |
| Capital One Arena | Wizards | $20 | $15 |
| Smoothie King Center | Pelicans | $15 | $12 |
| Little Caesars Arena | Pistons | $15 | $12 |
| American Airlines Center | Stars | $50 | $35 |
| Xfinity Mobile Arena | Flyers | $35 | $30 |
| Crypto.com Arena | Kings | $40 | $35 |
The Two Extremes
Coors Field has the widest gap by proportion. A Rockpile ticket goes for a median of $7 on the resale market. The cheapest spot in the Coors Field lots is $18.
Dodger Stadium has the widest gap in dollars. Top Deck seats resell for a median of $20; the stadium lots are $40.
Why No NFL Stadium Is On This List
Because NFL parking is expensive and NFL tickets are more expensive. The cheapest seat at an NFL game costs more than the cheapest parking spot at all 32 stadiums.
The NHL nearly holds too: three of its 32 arenas are on the list. What puts the ballparks on it is a genuinely cheap upper deck, which is one of the better things about baseball and also the thing that makes the parking look absurd next to it.
That is worth saying plainly, because "parking costs more than the ticket" reads like a complaint about parking and is at least half a compliment to the ticket.
What To Do Instead
Here is the part that makes this actionable: at 17 of these 20, the cheapest car-free option we list costs less than both the parking and the ticket. Each venue below links to the page that lists its fare.
- Dodger Stadium: the Dodger Stadium Express shuttle is free.
- PNC Park: the T across the river to North Shore is free, and the Roberto Clemente Bridge walk is the better version of the same trip.
- Comerica Park and Little Caesars Arena: the QLine streetcar is free.
- Smoothie King Center: the streetcar is $1.25.
- Crypto.com Arena: Metro rail is $1.75.
- loanDepot park: Metrobus is $2.25.
- Rate Field: the CTA Red Line is $2.50.
- Coors Field and Ball Arena: RTD is $2.75.
- Oracle Park: Muni's T Third Street is $2.85.
- Xfinity Mobile Arena, for 76ers and Flyers games, and Citizens Bank Park: SEPTA's Broad Street Line is $2.90.
- American Airlines Center, for Mavericks and Stars games: DART light rail is $3.
- Rogers Centre: the TTC subway is C$3.30.
Three are exceptions. At Capital One Arena and Nationals Park, Metro fares depend on how far you ride, so we hold the fare as an estimate and leave both out of that count. Globe Life Field names no transit route of its own, and the nearest rail we list, the Trinity Railway Express, stops at CentrePort/DFW rather than at the ballpark.
How We Got These Numbers
Every parking figure is the cheapest rate we list for parking a car, and that qualifier is doing real work:
- Transit and shuttle entries are excluded from the parking figure, or the comparison would be circular.
- Estimates are excluded. Where a lot is demand-priced and the venue publishes no standard rate, we flag the figure as provisional and it does not appear in a comparison like this one. Coors Field's LoDo lots are exactly that case (the operator's own listing ran from $7.99 to $37.01 for a single game), so the $18 above is the Coors Field lots, which do publish a floor.
- Rogers Centre prices in Canadian dollars, and we compare in US dollars rather than reading C$20 as twenty US dollars. That mistake overstates all nine Canadian venues.
Ticket figures are the cheapest tier we list for each venue: the club's face value where we have one, which among these twenty is only at Rate Field, and the median resale price for that tier everywhere else.
The Broader Point
Parking is the most negotiable line on a game day budget and the one people plan last. It is also the line where the cheap option is usually not a worse experience: the free shuttle at Dodger Stadium and the bridge walk at PNC Park are both better than the drive.
Sort every venue by what a full game day costs at the Game Day Price Index, compare two venues side by side with the comparison tool, or see how the ballparks stack up on MLB game day costs.