Are The Yankees Taking Our Advice And Peddling Excess Ticket Inventory On Stubhub?

Courtesy of ticketnews.com (via Shyster Ball) comes an interesting article about the sudden increase in Yankee Stadium premium ticket offerings available on StubHub. The speculation is that the Yankees are selling their own tickets on Stubhub and receiving pennies on the dollar - just to get some butts in the seats.

StubHub, for their part is taking the "deny 'til we die" approach, claiming that it is due to the freebies that the Yankees are handing out as part of their price reduction program They were also quick to note that they do not share personal information about sellers - meaning it could be anyone, including the Yankees. Even if it was within StubHub's power to divulge this information, they wouldn't, since it would probably get the Yankees' official ticket partner - Ticketmaster - pretty heated.

We here at NSI aren't surprised in the least by this accusation by ticketnews.com. As a matter of fact, we suggested a very similar idea just weeks ago:

If we were the Yankees, we would dump the tickets at wholesale costs (read: discounted) to a mega-broker that sells their tickets on Stub Hub. The onus would then be on the broker to move the now considerably cheaper inventory, and the Yankees would get kickbacks on the Stub Hub commission. Obviously, this will never happen.

Finally, the Yankees have listened to us and have made a smart move. Sure, this screws over the people who paid full price for those seats. However, at this point the most important job of the Yankees is to fill up their stadium - if only to ease the embarrassment of their blatant miscalculation of the premium ticket market.

Selling these seats on StubHub offers the Yankees free market research to evaluate the appropriate prices for their premium ticket offerings. Selling on StubHub also gives them the opportunity to adjust prices in real time based on the current market. Obviouisly, the Yankees would need to go through some intermediary to do this, and/or alert StubHub to this practice, since they are receiving kickbacks from all sales on Stubhub.com.

This is still all idle speculation, since the Yankees media spokespeople and Ticketmaster aren't responding to inquiries. Could this be the way the Yankees sell their tickets going forward? Would this be more fair to all parties involved? Let us know what you think in the comments section. Read the full post, after the jump

Madison Square Garden In The Bronx - Empty Field Level Seats At The New Yankee Stadium

Thanks to Anthonyny on Twitter for the screengrab

Have you ever been to Madison Square Garden and noticed that while the cheap seats in the uppers are packed with fans, the expensive purple seats closer to the floor are empty? This is because while the Dolan's ran the Knicks and Rangers into an abyss of irelevance, they also raised ticket prices exponentially, forcing the real fans into the only semi-affordable seats in the house.

With today's home Yankee game being the first non-premium game (and even worse a day game during the school year), we now have a chance to see the "Levine/Trost effect" at the new Yankee Stadium. Basically, what we have been blogging about for months is finally coming to fruition. The Yankees have overpriced all of the good seats, and have forced the average fans away from the field of play. The "Levine/Trost effect" is painfully obvious on the telecast, even when YES cameras have the centerfield camera as tight as possible during the pitching sequences...




The Yankees will be forced to lower ticket prices next season, but right now they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. There is no way that they can lower prices in order to move inventory without giving refunds to the suckers those who have already paid for the best seats. They also are going to look pretty bad every day on TV if non-premium games feature rows of empty field level seats.

We here at NSI believe in a solution-oriented approach. If we were the Yankees, we would dump the tickets at wholesale costs (read: discounted) to a mega-broker that sells their tickets on Stub Hub. The onus would then be on the broker to move the now considerably cheaper inventory, and the Yankees would get kickbacks on the Stub Hub commission. Obviously, this will never happen. For legal purposes, the Yankees would have to be transparent about something like this, and at that point, they would still be pissing off the suckers loyal season ticket holders in the most expensive seats. We also tossed around the idea of letting standing room only ticket holders "stand-in" as field level seat occupants, for the sake of posterity. That idea was also shot down because it wouldn't be fair to the suckers ticket licensees in the expensive seats.

Needless to say, we don't really feel bad for the Yankees, since upper-management greed put them in this position. We do feel bad for the average fans (including us!), who will never have the privilege to see a Yankee game from the prime viewing areas at the new Yankee Stadium. Read the full post, after the jump