As the sun cast into the late-morning June sky, the New York Yankees organization left their former ticket reseller, the Yankees Ticket Exchange, in the shadows.
After years of back and fourth head-knocking, the Yankees and StubHub announced an agreement on a multiyear sponsorship deal which deems StubHub the team’s official ticket reseller. The Yankees and StubHub agreed on a price point in neighborhood of $100 million, as they hope to provide Yankee fans with “a first-class ticket experience.”
Regarding the agreement, StubHub’s main caveat discussed how much tickets could be discounted. The new system will begin on July 7, opening for ticketing for the July 15 game and will run through the rest of the 2016 season.
Fans who are selling tickets through the Yankees’ old exchange will need their tickets sold by July 7, or they will have to re-list them on StubHub. The price discount will hit a floor of a 50 percent markdown from the full season-ticket rate of an individual ticket.
Anthony Beyrouti, founder and CEO of VenueKings, one of the largest ticket re-selling brokerages in North America, spoke to FoxSports about the deal between the historic club and the ticket resell powerhouse.
“It is a great deal for transparency in the industry,” said Beyrouti. “Whenever a team lowers a price floor it always allows for more tickets to be used and more access to fans. It’s good to see the Yankees saying nice things about the people at Stubhub instead of the negativity of the past few years.”
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The agreement comes on the heels of the organization announcing in February, print-at-home tickets will be banned for all home games this season. The ballpark will only be accepting traditional hard stock paper tickets, or new mobile tickets instituting an “anti-fraud” policy.
StubHub’s brick and mortar location, roughly a mile away from the stadium, has caused issues for fans in the past. Those individuals who had been denied or had issues at the entrance to Yankee Stadium with the ticket process had to walk to the outlet on the day of the game, and then walk dozens of blocks back to the stadium.
The inconveniences that mobile ticketing has given fans led to frustration. Issues with scanning the tickets, and customer service window waits as games started had fans longing for the days of print-at-home tickets that had been their staple for years.
Team president, Randy Levine, claims that print-at-home tickets were almost “obsolete” and the new era of mobile ticketing was “overwhelmingly” supported and wanted by the fans. “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 Levine. “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 Yankees will now need to pivot their attention to fixing a much larger problem within their organization – getting more fans to the game.
The ballpark’s attendance has massively declined as iconic Yankee greats have come and gone. The playoffs are drifting out of sight, and their crosstown rival, New York Mets, have become a force to be reckoned with. The Yankees averaged fan attendance of 38,313 this year through 37 home games, the lowest total since the new Yankee Stadium opened in 2009.
Ticketmaster will remain the Yankees’ primary ticket seller, but fans will have the ability to use other reselling sites other than StubHub if they would like. However, no other reseller can facilitate the transfer of mobile tickets except StubHub.
StubHub and the New York Yankees have “kissed and made up,” as the MLB begins to shift towards mobile ticketing of the future. Make sure you have charged your phone if you are going to the ballpark as you are going to need it for more than posting an Instagram picture.