The Yankees "are still adept at throwing their considerable weight around" on the business side, as they did last week when they "announced they would no longer accept print-at-home tickets," according to Billy Witz of the N.Y. TIMES. This move "could make it more cumbersome for buyers and sellers on the resale market who do not go through the Yankees’ ticket exchange." Yankees COO Lonn Trost "was lambasted as elitist for suggesting in a Thursday radio interview that some fans do not belong in premium seats." Yankees President Randy Levine on Saturday said that StubHub "had stoked the controversy, accusing it of putting out a narrative 'that’s completely fraudulent and completely false.'” However, Levine said that the Yankees "would be willing to allow StubHub and other companies to unlock mobile tickets so they could be resold separate from the Yankees’ ticket exchange and without price floors." He said, "We would work with ticket providers as long as we know they’re legitimate, doing it in the spirit of helping our ticket buyers. But the ones I’ve talked to, including StubHub and SeatGeek, they don’t want to do that because they don’t want to spend the time and money.” StubHub Global Head of Communications Glenn Lehrman said, "That is definitely news to us and definitely something we’d be interested in. You’d be opening up a playing field and being given the opportunity to buy and sell tickets in an open marketplace, which is what we’re asking.” Witz noted if an accord is reached, it will "end the latest dust-up between the Yankees and StubHub." Levine reiterated the Yankees’ stance that "protecting customers from fraud was the primary driver in their decision to discontinue print-at-home tickets." He "cited two types: someone printing out multiple copies of the same ticket and doctoring a printout to change the row and seat numbers to fetch a higher price" (N.Y. TIMES, 2/21).
FINDING A RESOLUTION: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Jared Diamond reports StubHub is "exploring solutions to combat the Yankees’ policy." StubHub is "considering a New York concierge service, which would involve a messenger collecting tickets from the seller and bringing them to the service center for later pickup or even delivering them straight to the buyer." Another thing StubHub could try "is to essentially act as a matchmaker for sellers with mobile tickets and prospective buyers." Industry experts said that "protecting the value of tickets is the Yankees primary goal, even if by artificial means." Smith College Economist Andrew Zimbalist said, “The teams are trying to gain some control back over their pricing structure.” Columbia Univ. Graduate Sports Management Program Dir Vince Gennaro said, “Imposing a floor for resale pricing will end up testing the reasonableness of their season ticket pricing" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2/22).
FANS WANT RESULTS: In N.Y., Mike Lupica writes, "Sometimes you worry that executives in sports, and not just Lonn Trost, are looking more at their fancy seats and not the people in them, forgetting that a crowd at the ballpark is still the most ecumenical of all in sports, no matter how much people paid for their tickets." Maybe the "best solution here is for the Yankees to get really, really good again" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 2/21). Also in N.Y., Phil Mushnick writes under the header, "Yankees Doing More And More To Price Out The Common Fan." From the moment it opened, the new Yankee Stadium has priced the best-to-better seats "to be purchased not by fans but by corporations." But even corporations "have limits" (N.Y. POST, 2/22).
