Cubs NLCS Tickets On Sale Friday... For Email Lottery Winners

By now, you have learned if you are a winner in the Cubs' email lottery for a chance to buy NLCS tickets for the three possible games at Wrigley Field next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The sale will begin tomorrow, Friday, October 16, at noon CT. For those of you who were chosen, congratulations. There are a few caveats about this sale, though. First, even though you were chosen, this does not guarantee you tickets. You will probably still have to wait in the dreaded Virtual Waiting Room and even if you get through, it's possible there won't be any tickets remaining at the time you get in. I don't know exactly how many tickets for each of the three games are available, but based on the announced attendance figures for each of the NLDS games (42,411), my estimate for available tickets for each game would be about 5,000. That's strictly a guess -- I have no way of knowing for sure what the exact number is.

Good luck to those of you who were chosen and I'd love to hear success stories -- or even failure stories! -- from anyone who gets tickets. I'll probably open a Tales from the VWR post here tomorrow.

There is some solace for anyone who entered the email lottery before the playoffs began and hasn't been selected yet. You're still entered for a possible drawing for World Series tickets, if the Cubs make it. That would be worth waiting for, I think.

For those of you looking to the secondary market for NLCS tickets, I received this data Wednesday from TiqIQ, a New York-based ticket aggregator/search engine for secondary-market ticketing:

• The Cubs' current NLCS series average price is $1,325.93. This would be the most expensive LCS ticket we have ever tracked (2nd: 2012 Giants, $687.15)
• The average ticket price for Game 3 at Chicago is currently $1,233.01 with a get-in price of $500
• The most expensive ticket currently listed is in Infield Club Box 30 row 1 for $11,700+
• Here are the current NLCS home average ticket prices for the two possible Cub opponents: Mets: $846.43, Dodgers: $366.24
• If the Mets and Cubs were to face off it would be the most expensive NLCS we have tracked at a current average ticket price of $1,084.31 (2nd: $490.12, Cardinals v Giants)

Remember, of course, that "listed" prices doesn't necessarily mean people are actually paying that much.

To give you an idea regarding pricing, here's what season-ticket holders paid for their postseason tickets:

It is likely single-game prices will be higher than these. For example, as a season-ticket holder my NLDS ticket was $75. Single-game price was $87.

Again, good luck to those who won the email lottery!