Don’t Be Fooled, the StubHub Agreement is NOT a Good Thing for Fans

The New York Yankees reached an agreement with StubHub to let the ticket reseller become the official place to go to buy your New York Yankees tickets. The Yankees Ticket Exchange is a thing of the past, and good riddance, but don’t be fooled into thinking the StubHub agreement will be a good thing for the fans either. In fact, this may hurt the fans even more and is a deal that was put into place simply to line the pockets of the Steinbrenner family. Imagine that, right?

The deal with StubHub was made for six-and-a-half years and a cool $100 million and that deal starts on July 15, 2016. In the deal the Yankees have taken away the option to get a last minute ticket for well under the retail and face value of the ticket, the Yankees couldn’t have that no, and have replaced it with a “floor” or a minimum purchase price for said ticket. So the Yankees would rather the ticket go unsold and miss out on potential merchandise, vending, parking and other sales inside the stadium and would rather set the floor at 50% less of the season ticket holders price. So if a ticket is $100 you’re not paying any less than $50.

The Yankees saw another 6.5% drop in attendance last year, and that was with Joe Torre Day and Bernie Williams Day and this day and that day which they will not have in 2016, in a year where overall attendance was once again up in Major League Baseball. The YES Network ratings, which the Steinbrenner are still minority owners in, are down too. Now the Yankees are making it even more expensive and even more of an inconvenience to head to the stadium to see a last place or second-to-last place team struggle to score runs and blow leads left and right on days where the three-headed monster are unavailable. Sounds legit to me.

The Yankees also didn’t lift their ban on print-at-home tickets in the deal. Why? It’s not fraud, the Yankees honored an average of five fraudulent tickets a game last year which is what Hal Steinbrenner spent on drinking alone this weekend, but it’s because they wanted to screw StubHub and force people to their Ticket Exchange. The ticket exchange is gone and the fans still suffer. But hey, Lonn Trost can sleep well at night knowing that people who can’t normally afford premium seats in the stadium aren’t sitting there. Because no one is sitting there. Idiot. 

Yankees, StubHub Announce New Deal

The Yankees Ticket Exchange is gone. Here is the official press release from the Yankees:




NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO – June 27, 2016 – The New York Yankees today announced a landmark, multi-year sponsorship agreement with StubHub, designating the company as the official fan-to-fan ticket resale marketplace of the New York Yankees.

The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The new product will allow StubHub to be completely integrated into the Yankees ticket system, replacing the Yankees Ticket Exchange. The new system will be fully integrated and operational by Thursday, July 7. The first ticket availability will be for the Friday, July 15 game, and extend through the remainder of the 2016 schedule.

“We are committed to providing our fans with a first-class ticket experience, and offering the safest, most secure and efficient platform for our fans to sell and purchase tickets,” said Randy Levine, President of the New York Yankees. “This new product was the result of many productive discussions with StubHub, which will allow them to fully integrate into our ticket system. We are confident this collaboration will best protect our fans in the resale ticket marketplace.”

“The New York Yankees are one of the preeminent brands in professional sports, and we are thrilled to join with them to create a best-in-class fan experience,” said Scott Cutler, President of StubHub. “StubHub’s goal is to ensure that fans have access to games that they love to attend, and I’d like to thank both the Yankees and MLB Advanced Media for their willingness to come to the table and reach a positive solution for all parties.”

The custom sponsorship deal will provide new features and functionality that will greatly enhance the consumer experience, leading to increased user efficiency and fan safety and protection. These added features will prevent speculative selling, adhere to the Yankees advertising resale price policy, generate verified bar/QR codes, and provide fully integrated mobile capacity, for the safest and most secure way to transmit tickets.

The New York Yankees introduced a mobile ticket system this year, and the agreement with StubHub will adhere to the existing mobile ticket policy. All tickets delivered will be mobile. Tickets will operate on both iOS and Android devices. Users can post hard stock tickets, but upon being sold, all will be converted to mobile format. To date, more than 250,000 fans have entered Yankee Stadium using mobile tickets (primary and secondary combined), and by the end of this season, the team expects to have welcomed

more than 600,000 mobile ticket users. This anticipated number is expected to be the largest among all teams in baseball.

With this new, technology-led sponsorship, the Yankees will join the longstanding StubHub arrangement that is in place with MLB Advanced Media.

While other secondary resale platforms will continue to remain an option for fans to buy and resell Yankees tickets, only StubHub will be fully integrated with the New York Yankees.



As part of the sponsorship agreement with the Yankees, StubHub will receive full marketing and sponsorship benefits, including in-stadium signage, suite access, and use of official team marks.

ICYMI: Yankees Respond to John Oliver on Thursday

John Oliver of HBO’s comedic show “Last Week with John Oliver” has been trolling the New York Yankees a bit during this first week of the baseball season and before the team left Yankee Stadium the organization finally responded to the comedian. We spoke about this yesterday that Oliver was out to send a message to the club and the fan base and that he needed to stop there or risk going overboard and counterproductive, well I can’t see him stopping now that the Yankees took the time to acknowledge him and respond to him.

In case you missed the whole story here is the Readers Digest version of it all. New York has been called “elitist a-holes” by Oliver after Lonn Trost basically said in not so many words that he didn’t want fans who couldn’t afford premium seats on a normal basis sitting with those who do. That and fraud was the reasoning behind the Yankees decision to stop taking print-at-home tickets and Oliver took offense to that. Oliver then purchased tickets and sold them to fans for a quarter if they agreed to dress up in costumes and attend the games.

All in all the crowd was protected by two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, scared by a pair of sharks, mesmerized by a pair of unicorns and terrified by a pair of dinosaurs prompting the Yankees organization to take notice via a message on the team’s videoboard. The message said “Thanks, John Oliver. Everyone is welcome at Yankee Stadium.”

Touche, Yankees and kudos. 

John Oliver… Point Made…. Move On

Apparently John Oliver, HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” host and comedian, was not a fan of the comments made by the New York Yankees, Lonn Trost specifically, in their whole debacle and debate with StubHub and print-at-home tickets. None of us were really happy with those comments or the decision truth be told, and when I say “us” I mean the fans, but none of us have taken it as far as Mr. Oliver has.

Oliver has seats directly behind home plate at Yankee Stadium and has looked to shake things up a bit in the Bronx during this three game home stand to open the season. After the Yankees basically told their fans in not so many words that they don’t want those who can’t afford the premium seats, the poor AKA the working man and woman, sitting with those that can afford the seats. So what did Oliver do? He pledged to sell his pair of seats to fans for a quarter, 25 cents, if they agreed to dress up in costumes during the game.

On Opening Day the Bronx faithful were blessed with the protection of a pair of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and for the second game there were two young women dressed in unicorn costumes with two others in shark costumes a couple rows behind them. Oliver has set out to prove a point to the Yankees and the point has been made, it’s time to move on.

Now I know on his next show he will talk about it again and recap what he’s done, that’s the whole premise behind his show and it’s very much his right to do so, but after that he needs to just let it go. What does he think he is proving? Is he going to change the hearts and minds of the Yankees organization? Nope. You know why? He paid full price for those tickets, the Yankees got their money and the Yankees are in it for one thing. Money. In fact New York is probably laughing all the way to the bank because of these costumes, free publicity. The costumes are all over MLB Network and ESPN as well as FOX Sports and such.

Oliver, nice work sticking up for the fans and the ones seemingly getting screwed by this print-at-home tickets decision. Just don’t beat it into the ground like a dead horse, that’s when it gets counterproductive. 

Prediction on the Attendance inside Yankee Stadium in 2016

This is a picture of the average attended game at Yankee Stadium. This is not a picture of the Jorge Posada or Bernie Williams Day’s or anything like that and it’s not a picture of Yankee Stadium in the postseason against the Houston Astros. This is what the stadium looks like the other 75 or so games a year when it was convenient to print your own tickets at home and show up to a game at a reasonable price during a weekday or on the weekend.

Here is what I predict the stadium will look like after the fans were “protected” by the organization when print-at-home tickets were banned. The average fan can’t sit with the elite and the fan who decides on a Tuesday morning that he got off work unexpectedly and wants to head to the Yankees game can’t because he doesn’t have a ticket in hand or is one of the 19 people left in the world without a smartphone.

For whatever reason though Michael Kay will still announce that 40,000 or so fans showed up to that particular game. Funny how that continues to happen. Attendance will be down, way down, and Hal Steinbrenner will have his excuse not to spend… again. 

Randy Levine Battles StubHub, Makes Yankee Fans Look Bad

The ongoing battle between the secondary ticket market, specifically StubHub and the New York Yankees continued this week with the Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr., StubHub representative and the Yankees Randy Levine having a war of words over the Yankees print-at-home ticket ban. You would think that Diaz, a lifelong Yankees fan who confessed his favorite player of all-time was Graig Nettles, would side with the Yankees but like many of us the new policy and the recent comments by the Yankees COO Lonn Trost has left a bitter taste in many of our mouths.

To put the entire squabble in a nutshell and to paraphrase Diaz is upset that the Yankees fans are being disrespected and slapped in the face, and they are, while Levine thinks it’s all because the Yankees no longer “comp” tickets for Diaz to conduct business with at Yankee Stadium. Levine went on to say in an interview that “I guess there are no greater problems in the Bronx that he needs to spend time on than ticketing.” Naturally Diaz’s camp denies being comped tickets by the Yankees and now the Bronx borough president is considering siding with StubHub.

Not that my vote matters but I am on StubHub’s side too. Just saying. 

Yankees Continue to Corner Second-Hand Ticket Market

The New York Yankees are getting tough on counterfeit and fake tickets on the second hand market and the fans of the team are paying for it. The Yankees have released a new ticketing policy for the 2016 season and many fans feel like they are getting the short end of the stick. The Yankees will no longer be accepting print-at-home tickets at Yankee Stadium for the 2016 season.

The options you now have are hard-copy tickets or a mobile bar code that can be scanned at the gate of Yankee Stadium. Don’t have a smart phone? Well you and the nine people left in the world without one can’t get into the game without a real paper ticket. This also means there will be no last second decisions to buy a ticket off StubHub for cheap to head to the stadium, you can only buy tickets off the Yankees Ticket Exchange now due to these new rules.

Ticket sales are already down and they are going to continue to go down the more it becomes an inconvenience to even head to the stadium. Bad move Yankees, bad move indeed.