The Milwaukee Brewers, in the playoffs for the first time since 1982, may have found a way to make up for lost profit over those 26 years by reselling their own tickets on the secondary market.
Hundreds of the team’s playoff tickets were listed on StubHub this week, but according to broker Patrick Ryan of SecureSeats.com only a small percentage of those tickets appear to have been listed by fans or fellow brokers. As a Brewers season ticket holder, Ryan has tracked the team’s ticket sales for the past two seasons. But, as he told TicketNews, he never had a chance to purchase more playoff tickets than his number of seats, which is rare, leading him to believe that tickets may have been withheld.
“This was completely alarming,” Ryan said. “I checked around on other sites, and fans and brokers weren’t reselling tickets. It seemed like tickets were impossible to get, but thousands of them were still able to turn up on StubHub.”
He added, “I would have no problem with it if they openly came out and said they were doing it to help make up for lost revenue from unsold seats during the season or past years. But, it just doesn’t seem right if they’re not telling brokers and fans.”
A representative of the Brewers, who said he was not authorized to comment, nevertheless denied that the team was reselling its own tickets.
Sean Pate, a spokesperson for StubHub, told TicketNews, “The team does not list tickets on StubHub to our knowledge. All listings come from individuals who have purchased tickets and are interested in reselling.”
The secondary ticketing giant became the official secondary ticket reseller for Major League Baseball last August. The “Postseason Ticket Information” page on each of the playoff teams official Web sites, with the exception of the Boston Red Sox, contain links for each game that go directly to StubHub.
Earlier today, the Brewers issued a release that a few select tickets were available to Saturday’s Game 3, but only if a fan purchased a 2009 season ticket package:
“Fans still have an opportunity to get tickets for Saturday’s Game 3 of the National League Division Series (NLDS) at Miller Park, but the deadline is fast approaching. A 2 p.m. CT cutoff TODAY has been set for fans to purchase 2009 Season Ticket Packages that include 2008 Postseason rights to purchase NLDS Game 3 (Home Game 1 at Miller Park).
At the time of this release, only 350 packages that include the rights to NLDS Game 3 (the first Brewers home game) remain.
2009 Season Ticket Packages that include 2008 Postseason rights to purchase NLDS Game 4 (Home Game 2 at Miller Park) will still be available, but only until 5:00 pm on Saturday, October 4.
If necessary, further information related to 2009 Season Ticket Packages that include 2008 postseason rights will be released next week.”
As of 4 p.m. EST, there were more than 2,500 tickets to Game 4 of the team’s series with the Philadelphia Phillies available on StubHub’s Web site, compared to just 857 on TicketsNow (See screenshots below). TicketNetwork’s exchange only showed 805 at the time.
While the Brewers and their fans may never get to see a Game 4, as the Phillies lead the best of five division series two games to none, it still remains to be seen if the Brewers were among those reselling tickets for the potential game.
StubHub ticket listing screenshot for Game 4 (total inventory highlighted):
TicketsNow ticket listing screenshot for Game 4 (total inventory highlighted):
4 Comments
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This is such a sleazy deal. First StubHub does Tell people that their tickets are from brokers – they say Fan to Fan. Now it looks like they are getting them right from the Teams. How low will the MLB go!
Looks like the only choices left for brokers are TN and Razorgator
Stubhub doesn’t care about brokers. When was the last time they improved something for the sellers? Sean Pate’s “buyer education” program, reduced incentives and higher performance targets, allowing Razor Gator to flood the UFC market, and obvious direct selling from MLB which Stubhub won’t even bother to flatly deny. Stubhub, you were once great. Can’t wait for more competition and for you to suffer.
Why is everyone blaming StubHub? We should be blaming the teams. They’re the ones who are opting to deny fans tickets so they can make a few bucks. And while we’re on the subject of teams doing this, how about those Cubs? A lot of people – casual fans and brokers alike – have commented to me how few tickets the Cubs made available via their lottery this year. The Cubs have scalped their own tickets before, and is there any doubt they’re utilizing the StubHub agreement to do it again?
At the end of the day, though, what StubHub and TicketsNow are doing are better for brokers because they also spend a lot of money arranging and publicizing their agreements with teams and promoters. This brings more traffic to their sites, and therefore, gives brokers who list there a better chance at selling their tickets. Meanwhile, companies like Ticket Network want YOU to pay THEM $ 150 a month plus commission to list on their site, when StubHub and TicketsNow just take straight commission and give you far more exposure. It’s obvious TicketNews’ bias against TicketsNow, StubHub, and Ticketmaster is based far more in the fact that those companies’ abilities to adapt to the secondary market better than TicketNetwork has, has made TicketNetwork a much harder sell to brokers such as myself. I would rather not pay the TicketNetwork fees, and just spend the time to list my stuff manually on StubHub and TicketsNow, while not only saving myself money, but also increasing exposure for my tickets.