The Yankees last night announced its plan with Ticketmaster to create Yankees Ticket Exchange (YTE), its in-house resale service after opting out of the five-year contract extension between MLBAM and StubHub. YTE will be offered to both season-ticket holders and single-game purchasers, with sellers in the former group charged just a 5% commission, one-third the 15% sellers' fee many sites such as StubHub require. Season-ticket holders also will be able to electronically transfer tickets from their own ticket account web pages to purchasers. Buyers will be charged a 10% commission, in line with other resale sites.
Club officials said the creation of YTE represents its attempt to retake control of the secondary market, particularly with regard to short sellers, who list and sell ticket inventory before actually having it in possession. "The short-selling has been a tremendous issue and problem with us," said Yankees COO Lonn Trost. "But with us, you can't sell what you don't have, and we think this will create a much more reliable and authentic market."
