A few fans who thought they were getting priority access to buy tickets to the Denver Broncos‘ first playoff game in six years were initially denied the opportunity when Ticketmaster didn’t recognize their zip codes as being from the Rocky Mountain states.
On January 2, the Broncos began selling tickets online through Tickemaster to the January 8 Wild Card home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The sale was restricted only to purchasers with credit card billing addresses in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota and western Kansas.
The problem? Some newer Colorado zip codes had not been entered into the Ticketmaster database.
Potential buyers from Denver suburbs, such as Brighton and Castle Rock, were greeted with a message telling them that access for purchasers from outside the region would be granted on January 3. Meaning they would have to wait a day and hope tickets were still available.
The practice of restricting ticket sales to certain regions has been previously used by other NFL teams. The league does not have a policy encouraging or preventing such limitations; instead it leaves the decision up to individual teams.
“Teams set their ticketing policies,” NFL spokesperson Dan Masonson wrote in an e-mail to TicketNews. “Clubs in all sports have always looked to fill their stadiums with fans of the home team.”
The Broncos quickly moved to rectify the glitch, according to the Denver Post. By January 3, the team had contacted the 13 people who were denied tickets, and they were sold seats to the playoff game.
The move is the latest example of a team attempting to prevent out-of-state ticket brokers, or an opposing team’s fans, from buying up tickets. The Arizona Cardinals implemented a similar restriction for their 2009 home NFC Championship game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Later that same year in the NHL, the Washington Capitals used the same tactic to keep Pittsburgh Penguins fans from buying up tickets to the Capitals’ home playoff games.
“I appreciate that the Broncos kind of reached out to us,” ticket buyer Shannon Turk of Brighton told KMGH-TV in Denver. “They could have just swept it under the rug.”
