Upgrade Your MLB Seats In-Game? There’s An App For That

Feb. 24, 2013; Mesa, AZ, USA; General view of the game between the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs at Hohokam Park. The Cubs won 4-3. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

You purchase yourself a nose bleed seat but by the sixth inning in a blowout, half of the once promising attendance has left for local bars while you sit with your friend, isolated in section 334. You slowly creep to a better seat on the concorse level and by the eighth inning, you’re just a few rows back behind homeplate – assuming you crept past the usher in the section safely.

It’s baseball lure at its best but now – just like most things – the MLB wants you to pay for it.

Across the Bay in Oakland, along with three other venues in the league, Major League Baseball is rolling out their “Mobile Seat Upgrade” app which will allow fans to purchase better in-game seats that haven’t sold – for an additional price, of course.

The feature was tested last season in Atlanta where the average upgrade cost $16 bucks – ON TOP of the money you already paid for your seat.

There isn’t any word on when the San Francisco Giants plan to unveil their plan to do this (though it is in the works) as right now, only the Minnesota Twins, Atlanta Braves, fellow NL West foe Arizona Diamondbacks and across Bay rivals, the Oakland Athletics, are going to start the season with it.

Pricey as the upgrades were, it did seem to have some solid success in Atlanta and it appears it could be league-wide by season end.