Business

Yanks’ new ticket exchange service battles StubHub

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The Yankees’s move to dump StubHub and bring on Ticketmaster as its official reselling partner won’t necessarily bring cheaper ticket prices. In fact, fans might end up spending more, a study by The Post of 2013 ticket prices reveals.

Prices on dozens of tickets on StubHub yesterday were 7.5 percent lower on average than comparable prices posted on the Yankees Ticket Exchange, which is powered by Ticketmaster technology.

Of 28 cases for four games in the first half of the season, StubHub had a lower price on comparable tickets in 27 cases, The Post study found.

On Opening Day, for example, tickets at seven different locations in Yankee Stadium averaged 5.5 percent lower on StubHub.

The Yanks parted company with StubHub after last season and last week announced the launch of its official ticket exchange for fans.

To entice fans, the team announced that their Yankees Ticket Exchange will charge sellers a fee of 5 percent compared with 15 percent, which the Yankees said is the “current fee structure of other resale solutions.”

But even with the higher fees, StubHub appeared to have the lower prices.

In one of the more dramatic price differences, weekend grandstand seats early in the season could be found on StubHub for $18.50 — while similar seats on Ticketmaster cost $57.75.

The price differential could hamper the Yanks’ efforts to woo fans to its site.

Team executives said the price difference isn’t real. “The comparison you are seeing is a fantasy and leads to problems of nonverifiable tickets,” Yankees President Randy Levine told The Post.

“Since no tickets have been sent to our season-ticket holders that are eligible to be posted on StubHub, whatever is on there is by definition probably illegitimate,” he added.

While StubHub no longer has a partnership with the Yanks, it is the official ticket reseller of the Mets and of Major League Baseball.

StubHub has been trying to counter recent claims by the Yanks that seemed to lump the eBay-owned company into a category of “unscrupulous” resellers that fans should be concerned about.

“Being an official partner is a very nice thing to have, but it’s not a need-to-have,” said StubHub CEO Chris Tsakalakis.

“The desperation of StubHub is becoming more evident every day as they realize that the Yankees Ticket Exchange is a better product, is a more reasonably priced product and more secure product,” Levine countered. “StubHub will stop at nothing, including mischaracterizing the ticket market, trying to make a comparison of nonverifiable tickets on StubHub as compared to actual traceable tickets. This is the reason most fans will go to the Yankees Ticket Exchange.”