Astros fans get another chance for the replica World Series ring

Due to the popularity of the Astros WS ring giveaways, they will have another giveaway on July 11th.

Let’s go back to the start of the 2018 season for the Houston Astros. It was April 7th. There was a different buzz around the stadium on that day. Before the Astros played the Padres, fans lined up hours and hours early to get the World Series Champions replica ring sponsored by Coca-Cola. This was the first opportunity for fans to get something that represented what they accomplished in 2017.

It was a cold day as my son and I chilled with H-Town Wiggy in the season ticket holder’s line. The Astros made some money off me that day as I was unaware of the cold front coming in. As we waited, people were going into the store and dropping thousands of dollars on the Jostens replica rings. They did this while they were waiting for the cheap knockoff version. Everyone wanted their piece of history.

Unfortunately, only 10,000 fans got the rings that day. If you weren’t lucky enough to get one, you probably could have bought one on eBay for a pretty penny. Because I didn’t need to buy a ring, I didn’t look at the prices. Some fans get there early to get collectibles and the others get there early and post the rings on eBay right away. Desperate fans were spending some money to get the ring due to the scarcity of the rings.

How about another giveaway?

In the spirit of giving away rings to the players and employees, the Astros announced that they would have another giveaway. Due to the popularity of the ring giveaway, they picked a random day to do another giveaway. This time, they announced that they would give everyone with a ticket a ring. The random night was Wednesday, June 20th, versus the Rays. Tickets for that game sold out within an hour or so.

Tickets then went on the secondary market and were being sold for 3 to 4 times the face value. This was a good marketing ploy by the Astros to sellout a Wednesday night game versus the Rays as 43,409 fans walked through the gate. At the same time, this flooded the market with 43k more rings to diminish the value.

https://twitter.com/astros/status/1011308625258835969

You get a ring. You get a ring. Everyone gets a ring.

Then the Corpus Christi Hooks had a replica ring giveaway the Sunday night, where they had a record crowd of 10,446 in attendance. Once again, every fan that walked through the gate got a ring. This ups the number of rings out there to about 65,000. This has not diminished the value of the rings too much, because they are being sold on eBay for between $60-70 each.

Like Ray Kinsella learned in the movie Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come. The Astros like a packed house because they get to sell more beer and food. So they figured that they would have another giveaway, this time on July 11th versus the Athletics. Every fan with a ticket will receive a 2017 replica WS ring.

This will up the number of replica rings out there to around 120K, further diminishing the value of the rings. Look for this to become a buyers market soon for the rings. The supply should overwhelm the demand. If you were one of those people who paid dearly at the beginning of the season for the rings, this has to be upsetting. For those of you who have missed out, here is your chance.

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Don’t go to Astros.com to buy tickets for July 11th. Those tickets sold out within an hour of the announcement today. I was one of the people who were able to get tickets for the game. If you weren’t as lucky, once again you can go to the secondary market and pay postseason prices for a blah Wednesday game versus the A’s. At the time of writing, the lowest price for that game on Stub Hub is $71 for the View Deck.