Jon and I outside Citi Field before the game.
Two big things happened in Squawkerland yesterday. I was extensively quoted in a Yahoo! Finance article about the Yankees/Stubhub ticket debacle. Click here to read the piece, and thanks to Daniel Roberts for putting me in his article! And Squawker Jon and I were at one of the best MLB games of the year last night: the Mets-Cubs game.
Remember how I froze my tuchis off on Presidents’ Day waiting with Jon outside Citi Field for free tickets, when the Mets had that pre-spring training fan event in severe cold? Well, this is the second game we got free tickets for from that day. And these seats had a face value of $63 each!
So it’s an interesting juxtaposition. The Mets gave out many free tickets the year as a thank you to fans after making it to the World Series, while the fourth-place Yankees, whose attendance is sinking like a stone, are making it more expensive to buy tickets on the secondary market. As Phil Mushnick of the New York Post points out today, Yankees president Randy Levine taunted reporters at the StubHub presser the other day by saying:
“The difference is that most of you guys have never run anything, and we have a lot of history here of knowing what we’re doing.”
Citi Field ended up with over 40,000 people last night (over 95% capacity!)
But, of course, Levine and the Yankees don’t really know what they’re doing when it comes to getting fans in the door these days. And the fact is, as I have written here and here, the deal with StubHub will mostly hurt, not help, fans. Season ticket holders will lose money because they won’t be able to unload their tickets at a price that people will buy. And Yankee ticket buyers will lose out because they are going to have to pay more for tickets.
Unfortunately, most of the media has been asleep at the wheel when it comes to covering this story. A rare exception is Daniel Roberts of Yahoo! Finance. I quoted him the other day and sent him the article. We got to talking about the issue, and I sent him more research I did proving that StubHub’s claim that only 100 of 51,000 tickets would be affected was a lie.
He talked to someone at StubHub who claimed my figures were wrong. But they weren’t:
Yahoo Finance reached out to StubHub and the Yankees to get Cutler’s claim clarified. A spokesperson for StubHub at first said that the minimum ticket prices Swan used are incorrect, because the minimum prices “are based on the lowest season ticket price anyone pays in each section” and that those prices are not publicly listed. But they are publicly listed, at this page.
But wait, there’s more! From Roberts’ piece:
StubHub also said that Cutler “misspoke” and meant to say 100 listings, not tickets, the distinction being that each listing could contain multiple tickets. StubHub on Wednesday, in an email exchange, raised the number to 300 tickets that would currently fall under the price floor. That number does not appear accurate either—a look at tickets just for today’s game showed 62 listings for grandstand tickets ($20 face value) at under $10. It’s highly unlikely that only 300 Yankees tickets of the 20,000 now for sale on StubHub fall under the floor. “The claim is sheer nonsense,” says Swan.
As I always say, when you’re in a hole, quit digging! Why don’t they tell the truth for once?
I’ve been a fan of StubHub for years, so I’m disappointed they’re selling out their principles and business model here, but the ultimate fault lies with the Yankees for demanding this ticket floor and refusing to let fans use print-at-home tickets. (Incidentally, Jon was able to print his ticket for last night’s Mets game, and I used my phone. Imagine that — giving fans options!)
You know, in some businesses, when a public face of an organization keeps on making bad decisions for it — and alienating fans to boot — they might actually lose their job for doing so. But this is Yankeeland, where Hal (Rip Van Winkle) Steinbrenner is too busy flying around in his private plane like the dilettante he is to actually hold Levine accountable.
This pizza was only $10.50, and tasted great!
Meanwhile, I was over at Citi Field last night, where we had delicious food (pizza from Danny Meyer’s new Papa Rosso stand, and a Steak Piazziola Short Rib Hero from Rao’s), great (and free!) seats, and an entertaining game, to boot, with Yoenis Cespeses hitting a massive homer, the Mets coming back against the Cubs, and Jeurys Familia holding on to save the game. Oh, and there were over 40,000 fans there last night, vocal and enthusiastic, adding to a great atmosphere. You know, the way it used to be in Yankee Stadium once upon a time.
Look, Yankee fans like me are lifers. We’re not going to switch our allegiances to teams. But the casual fan can and will, and is already moving over to Metsland. Notice how many people you see wearing Mets gear around town these days.
What is it going to take in Yankeeland for somebody to realize that the team is in trouble? They can’t rely on people going to the ballpark for the food and drink, since both are terrible and overpriced. The atmosphere is awful. And now they’ve made StubHub tix more expensive. Good thing Randy Levine knows what he’s doing!
