The Yankees Blame Stub Hub For Poor Attendance

If The Yankees wanted to get back to sell outs for non premium games, they would have to cut face value of their tickets by 50 - 60 %.

I'm sure that they have the numbers but I would be curious to know how many tickets of their nightly attendance were bought through Stub Hub. I bet that
the number is fairly large.

 

Yeah. It's called fair market value and all StubHub is doing is correcting it. I haven't bought tickets from the box office for a baseball game in eons unless it's some sort of deal. Such as a few years ago the Rockies would roll out a deal about once a month for its Facebook fans where you could buy two first-level seats (beyond the bases) for $20 total. If they want people buying from them on most nights it's going to take creative marketing. Hell, even now when I go to a game the most common phrase I hear from scalpers is "cheaper than the box office!" The teams can only blame their own pricing.

 

I have several contacts for half-price - and occasionally free - Jays tickets so I have never used StubHub, but I looked into it for a Jays-Rays game we are planning on attending in St. Pete's in August.

Right now the prices are very similar to what the Rays' site is charging, as the game - midweek on a Wednesday - gets closer are the StubHub prices likely to change? This wouldn't exactly be a premium date for the Rays.

 

Yes - prices start out high and drop precipitously as game gets closer. It's well worth the wait if you are sure game will not sell out.

 

My experience is the closer you get the better the prices are. You're so far out right now that the people who are posting the tickets are just fishing and seeing if someone will bite on a higher price. Take a peek at some of the prices for similar games coming up and that might be a good indicator of where prices might be in a couple of months.

Be patient. With things like print-at-home tickets you can wait almost right up to game time (or whenever the team cuts off the print at home ticket feature). But you need to keep in mind where you want to sit along with price and all that because if you wait too long pickings may get slim. Just know the box office price and if you see something much better in an area you want to sit snap it up.

 

Not to turn this too much into an informercial...but I've been using ScoreBig.com to buy tickets for sporting events here in Los Angeles. I was able to get tickets on the 35-yard line for USC's homecoming last year against Washington for $35 each - I think face value was $55 or $60. And a few months ago I got midfield tickets about 10 rows up for a Chivas USA game for $20 each. It's a different model than Stub Hub - it's more like Priceline in that you set a price that you are willing to pay and they tell you the odds that you'll find a ticket at that price.

The bottom line is that I have no idea why you would buy tickets from the team. ESPECIALLY when you have to pay a pretty outrageous "convenience fee" to Ticketmaster in order to finish the purchase.

 

To be fair, StubHub can have some decent fees too. Something like 10 percent plus delivery charge over $50 and I think it's five bucks a ticket under $50. But I consider fees part of the package no matter who you buy from. So I want the best total price regardless of who I buy from.

 

Aside from the cost, it's way easier to search for and buy off StubHub than off a team website. I was just looking for Giants tickets and no matter what category I entered, it kicked me to "best available," which was just upper-deck outfield seats. (All they had left because they have a "sellout streak" going.) But on StubHub I could punch in the category or even the specific section number and call up dozens of tickets. Got them at about face value in my favorite section of the park.

 

StubHub's no bargain when it comes to the fees unless you're talking the instant download variety. Then it's not so bad. But fair warning, if you have to have the original ticket (e.g., parking passes), you're going to pay for FedEx shipping. And they tack on a pretty hefty fee for that admittedly convenient/reliable add-on.

In general, though, the whole idea of all those dinky processing fees pisses me off. Tell me what the price is. That includes all the overhead required to sell me the damn thing. But don't tell me the seat's priced at $24.50, but for me to buy it (from you!) is going to cost me $30.73.

 

Sounds like The Yankees will move to kill the good deal that fans are getting by buying tickets through Stub Hub. Still cannot see how the Yankees can blame Stub Hub for poor attendance.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/yank_that_ticket_hfj9Goj5i5aR0e4shTjobK

"The team, led by general partner Hal Steinbrenner, blames eBay’s StubHub for declining attendance, which is off about 4 percent compared with this point last season. Fans, instead of buying unsold tickets from the team, purchase resold tickets for much less than face value on StubHub. But such an active resale market means many tickets go unused.

A full 66 percent of Yankees tickets in April and May resold on ticket exchanges for a price under the ticket’s face value, according to SeatGeek Research, which finds customers the best prices for tickets.

On average, Yankees tickets are discounted $10.96 — 17 percent off their average face value of $65.10, according to SeatGeek.

Average prices for premium seats dropped the most — $90.38 off $250 Field MVP tickets, and $76.01 off $130 Field Level seats."

 

They think they have empty seats now, just see what happens if they cut off cheap tickets on the resale market.

An unsold seat doesn't pay for parking, buy beer, hot dogs, etc etc etc.

Go ahead, Hank. Cut your own throat.

I got news for you: you aren't happy with 4,000 empty seats, you try to enforce your Taj Mahal full price schedule on the market, you'll have 24,000 empty seats for everybody except the Red Sox.


BTW, ALL anti-scalping laws should be repealed.

Oh -- and the existence of StubHub at all proves one thing beyond any doubt: pro sports franchises engage in massive consumer fraud, bait-and-switch pricing and price fixing.

All these tickets on StubHub have to be owned by somebody. Why would anybody EVER sell them for far below face value if they had already paid the franchise full face value?

Unless.... Hmmm.

Oh yeah.

 

The Yankees are 5th in the league in average attendance this year. 10th in terms of percentage. Unless you've got a small park like Fenway, I think the economy has killed the days of selling out games against the Royals and A's.