New York Yankees

The New York Yankees have reached a landmark deal worth $100-million to make StubHub their official ticket reseller which is nothing short of essential for the organization. 

By Christian Kouroupakis

The long and ongoing battle between the New York Yankees and StubHub has officially come to an end and boy will it go a long way for the Yankees organization.

About four months ago, the Yankees took a shot at StubHub by discontinuing print-at-home tickets which made the most convenient option for fans to go to the ballpark disappear. The new ticket policy was without a doubt made to hurt companies like StubHub and to make everyone’s first option the Yankees Ticket Exchange.

For more than a decade, printing tickets at home became standard procedure for fans in every sport because of its convenience and lower prices compared to the box office.

Online ticket brokers such as StubHub allowed more people to sell unused tickets on a secondary market and make them accessible for fans to purchase, even for sold-out events. Out of the blue, it became no more and the Yankees felt the burn rather quickly.

Through their first 37 home games under the new policy, the Bombers have averaged 38,313 people per game which is down from the 40,107 they brought in when printable tickets were not considered to be obsolete by the franchise a year ago.

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Now, in hopes to bring that number up they have waived the white flag and welcomed StubHub back into the picture to replace Ticketmaster as the Yankees’ official resale partner starting after the All-Star break.

Team President Randy Levine stated that this is a six-year deal in which the Yankees will sell their tickets on a mobile-only platform making them the only baseball team that has a mobile-only delivery.

The deal will also implement innovative features that will considerably heighten the customer experience which could lead to increased user efficiency and protection. These added features will stop risky selling, abide by the Yankees’ policies, generate verified bar/QR codes, and implement a full mobile ticket system.

The price floor? Originally there was absolutely zero price floor (so you could buy Yankees’ tickets as low as one dollar) but the new floor will be half as much as the one-year season-ticket price of the tickets.

For example, if a seat costs $20 the lowest you could sell on StubHub would be $10 which is a blessing compared to Ticketmaster’s tickets being almost $100 dollars over face value for field level seats.

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When they made Ticketmaster their official resale partner, they aimed for a fan-friendly method of reselling tickets but by no means was eliminating cheap resale tickets for students and families ‘fan-friendly’. Now, the Yankees have made the right choice for the fans (for once) so they can afford to enjoy their favorite team play baseball.

It seems as though, like the most prominent on the field rivalry, the greatest rivalry between a team and a ticket resale company has died down.

One of the greatest organizations in sports has gotten tired of seeing more than half of their rich stadium hollow because they have optioned to not give fans the alternative option of purchasing tickets on the secondary market.

This greed has kept fans that stand up and cheer with two outs and two strikes on an opposing batter while craving that third called strike in the beginning portion of the game out of the stadium.

It has kept fans who actually want to attend a Wednesday afternoon game out of the stadium. It has also kept out children wanting to go to their first major league game along with the rest of the die hards who aren’t fortunate enough to pay for the average ticket price of $100.

Worst of all, it has kept out fans from doing everything in their power to make the new house sound like the “House That Ruth Built” since it’s opening in 2009.

The greed and the necessity to control not only the primary ticket market but the secondary market has left the Yankees with a significant decline in attendance. In fact, for the first time since September 14, 2008, the New York Mets drew a bigger crowd than the Yankees did on June 21 of this year.

You all feel horribly just watching a dead crowd on a nightly basis with many sections left completely vacant and now the front office has done something about it.

Hopefully, with this new policy, everyone shall be in person to hear more than just Aroldis Chapman’s 100+ MPH heater hit the glove of Brian McCann and hear some cheers to not only go along with it but to overpower it.

It will take some time before we can forgive COO Lonn Trost’s shot at fans, but it’s more than compelling to see the New York Yankees take the high road and bring one of the most customer friendly resale options back into the picture.

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