Without offering a reason why, TicketsNow recently removed tickets to home games of the New England Patriots from its marketplace. In addition, the Illinois-based ticket company, the nation’s second-largest secondary ticketer according to TicketNews’s exclusive industry rankings, also mysteriously took down tickets to events in the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and Manitoba.

The moves quietly became effective sometime just after the first of the month, and according to the company the removals are apparently for the foreseeable future. While TicketsNow did not give a reason for taking down the Patriots tickets, industry speculation is centering on parent company Ticketmaster influencing the decision. Ticketmaster is the Patriots’s official ticket company, and the team has taken a hard line against the resale market.

For two years, the Patriots have been embroiled in a bitter legal fight with Ticketmaster rival StubHub over the resale of the team’s tickets, and the Patriots successfully petitioned a court to force StubHub to turn over thousands of names of brokers and customers who bought or sold Patriots tickets on the site.

“Since TM [Ticketmaster] has the primary ticketing contract with the Patriots they are beholden to honoring their wishes for business practices and my guess would be that the Patriots didn’t want any tickets listed anywhere other than their own TicketExchange, which only allows wait-list members to buy tickets sold for face value,” Sean Pate, spokesperson for StubHub, told TicketNews.

Neither TicketsNow President and CEO Cheryl Rosner, nor Patriots spokesperson Stacey James, retuned messages seeking comment by press time. In addition as of early today, October 8, TicketsNow did not mention the move on its corporate blog. Even though the Patriots have lost superstar quarterback Tom Brady for the season due to injury, the team remains among the favorites in the AFC, making their tickets a hot commodity.

“I can tell you if I was a broker owning Pats tickets or events in Canada I’d be mighty pissed off,” said one ticket broker, who wished to remain anonymous. In Canada, Ticketmaster recently ran into some turbulence concerning tickets to Elton John shows in the country that were turning up suspiciously on TicketsNow. Ticketmaster vehemently denied having taken any part in the matter.

TicketsNow issued two separate emails to its broker clients announcing the removals, the text of which are below:

To Our Valued Partners:

Please be advised that ticket listings for all New England Patriots home games have been removed from TicketsNow indefinitely. Patriots inventory will remain on EI Marketplace.

If you have any questions, please contact your EI representative.

Learn more about the Insomniac web browser, designed for ticket resale professionals

Thank you,
The EventInventory Team

And the Canadian correspondence:

To Our Valued Partners:

Please be advised that ticket listings for events scheduled in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Manitoba are being removed from TicketsNow. Inventory for events in these provinces will remain on EI Marketplace. Please contact your EI representative with any questions.

We regret any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you,
The EventInventory Team

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