So the Yankees are going after StubHub. Which means going after Yankee fans.
All in time for today’s season opener.
StubHub is a ticket reseller owned by eBay. It is also the official ticket reseller for Major League Baseball. For Yankee fans, that has meant both cheaper tickets for less popular games, as well as convenience: Via the StubHub button on Yankee.com, Buyer John could print out the ticket he bought from Seller Joe — or print it out at a kiosk at Yankee Stadium.
That changed late last year, when the Yanks opted out of baseball’s deal with StubHub. Because StubHub has no floor on prices, the Yankees complain it is driving down ticket prices and attendance. So the Bronx Bombers are now going with StubHub rival Ticketmaster, where there will be a price below which tickets cannot be sold.
Unfortunately for the Yankees, modern markets are not so easily deterred. Though the Yankees can make StubHub more inconvenient, they can’t prevent fans from buying and selling tickets through it. That’s why the team is now using an anti-scalping law to try to prevent StubHub from opening a shop close to Yankee Stadium where fans can pick up their StubHub tickets.
Now, the Yankees are fully within their rights to choose whatever partners they wish, and to get the best terms they can. But we wonder: Whatever else StubHub does, surely its lower prices help fill seats that might otherwise go empty — with loyal fans who go on to buy their share of peanuts and Cracker Jack.
How the court will come down is anyone’s guess. But if StubHub is making it hard for the Yankees to charge what they want, maybe they should take another look at their prices. It sure is hard to see fans rewarding a team that goes to court to “protect” them from buying cheaper tickets.