The Yankees Blame Stub Hub For Poor Attendance

The bottom line is that the pricing model the Yankees developed in new stadium is flawed and it will take years to unwind.

If they revert back to a system that makes tickets less available on Stub Hub, attendance will go down further.

 

Yep. Broadly speaking, I would say it used to play out this way: A person has two season tickets but can't use them Tuesday night against Toronto. That person adjusts the schedule to use them or maybe finds a close friend or relative, someone who wasn't planning to go. Meanwhile, the unrelated ticket-buyer needs two tickets for Tuesday night in Toronto and goes to the team. Total tickets purchased from Yankees is four.

With StubHub, the total tickets purchased from the Yankees is two.

 

Tonight's game against the Ray's provides a prime example of the issue.

Stub Hub has almost 5000 seats available. If you want to sit in the grand stands you can buy a ticket for $1 ( yes that's correct). If you buy the same seat through The Yankees using Ticket Master and their customer unfriendly system you will pay $20 ea. If you want to sit at Field Level just down the line from the infield you can buy a ticket on Stub Hub for $39. If you buy the same ticket from The Yankees direct it will cost you $100.

My seats cost $125 ea. I've given them to clients but if I decided to sell them, best I could do is $60 ea based on market.

Clearly Levine is incorrect in saying that Stub Hub is not a fan friendly option. What is correct is that Stub Hub is not a scalper friendly option because it kills the market.

 

It destroys the last-minute team-website gate for non-premium games . . . but the Yanks already did that, when they recalibrated their scaling of the house in their addled atttempt to freeze conventional scalpers out of the equation to (what they thought was) the greatest extent, possible.

 

They also destroyed the ambiance of the stadium. The horseshoe around home plate used to be filled on all levels, which created a high noise level for big moments.
Now it's always half empty with little crowd noise.

 

Actually, check out how cheap even Red Sox tickets are:
www.stubhub.com/boston-red-sox-tickets/red-sox-vs-orioles-6-6-2012-2040170/

 

I'm assuming he meant for when they play the Yankees.

 

Correct assumption

 

My bad.

 

I'm convinced the teams use Stubhub themselves for tickets they know they're not going to sell at face to recoup something out of them rather than the nothing they might get at full-price.

To wit, every time I've gone to a Cardinals game, they've had the same tickets available in the same sections for every game. Same for Reds, Brewers, etc.

 

I've heard that the Yankees use a ticket broker in Fla to off load unsold tickets that then flood the Stub Hub market.

Every ticket resold on Stub Hub represents a lost chance for The Yankees to sell a new ticket at full price.

 

Assuming that teams actually sell some of their inventory directly "through" StubHub, there's also the upside of being able to extract above-face-value prices for high-demand games that are sold out.