The Yankees Blame Stub Hub For Poor Attendance

In the old stadium those clowns were in the suites with the fish nets behind home plate.

 

I think this is true, and understood to be true.

Between pre-sales for Amex and fan clubs, and tickets that are held back for promoters, the venue, radio stations, etc., a small percentage of tickets is actually put on sale for a hot concert.

But, this is different. The question is are teams dumping tickets at prices below face value on the secondary market to capture some revenue. That may very well be true, but it's never been admitted, or detailed -- as far as I know.

 

This isn't my area, but I did a quick lit search and found some relatively recent work involving this and similar scenarios. It seems sellers of tickets (i.e., teams or promoters) can maximize (or at least increase) their profitability by setting up different channels with different policies. So a team might allow StubHub resales below face value only up to some point in time prior to the game, then severely restrict or even prohibit resales.

That is the case with the Texas Rangers. You can buy anything you want (at whatever price is being offered) from StubHub up to a couple of hours before gametime. Then, as if by magic, all inventory disappears from StubHub. At that point your only choice is between: A) buying whatever's available at face value from the team; B) buying from licensed brokers who are located a mile or so from the Ballpark; or C) buying from a broker operating on the sly (and illegally) on the streets around the Ballpark. When I first started going to Rangers game I was struck by what a different experience it was and quickly realized it was the lack of "brokers" standing at strategic points. It's actually against the law (and they're pretty strict about it, too) to sell any ticket for any price in what is known as the "Arlington Entertainment District," which is basically the Ballpark, Cowboys Stadium, and all associated parking lots and walkways.

 

Yankee fans have been like the family dog that keeps getting kicked yet keeps coming back home and never bites their owner. I am guilty as any of them but it may now be the time where there is a revolt.

Pre '96 they were getting a total annual gate of under 2 million. In following 10 years their attendance doubled to 4 million much because they were putting a good product on the field - a team fun to watch. The food at the stadium sucked and the bathroom sucked but no one cared because it was all about the baseball experience.

Now that baseball experience is secondary to attending a game for most. As BB King sings "The thrill is gone"

 

That's already happening with multiple franchises re premium games. Cubs are prime example -- or at least they were, when people still believed there was a sliver of hope. Even the Yanks run deep-discounted direct specials re weekday dates with punk-draw teams like the Royals.

 

As ticket prices have gone up, so has the quality of the TV broadcast, making it harder to justify spending a ton of money to go to the ballpark. I don't mind sitting in the upper deck, so I'll shell out $20 or so total on tickets to take the family, but I won't pay $20 per ticket. Hopefully there are better deals for Mets tickets as the season goes on as there doesn't seem to be as many steep discounts on StubHub. I suspect that is because there aren't as many season ticket holders, thus lowering the inventory on StubHub.

 

That's my price point, too ... $20 or so bucks for the whole family. With parking, we're at $30, and with a beer or two (the wife's a lush ) we're at $50 to $60. That's my cap.

 

The Mets do something like that. They rate the games by gold, silver, bronze, and, I think, value. Games against the Yankees are gold games. Games against the Pirates are value games, and they're priced accordingly.

 

The Rockies do it too -- I think they have three levels -- although a majority of games are under the same price. And you can still find cheaper tickets on StubHub in most cases.

 

I bought tickets to Saturday's Dodgers game on StubHub and on Sunday received an email from Dodgers.com with a game recap and thanking me for attending. The Dodgers must have sold the tickets through StubHub, how else would they know I bought them?

BTW, paid $3 each, plus $10.45 in fees, for tickets that are $16 face.

 

StubHub shares sales data with MLB and the teams, so that shoud explain the email.

 

Also if you got instant tickets they download those from the team so they likely used your info to do so, info which would be about the same you would have used if you went straight through the team.