Message to Randy Levine and Lonn Trost: When you're in a hole, quit digging!

I really was going to write today about something else in Yankeeland besides the team's ticket debacle. Honest. But as long as team president Randy Levine and COO Lonn Trost keep on saying and doing dopey things about it, I've got to keep Squawking about it!

The gruesome twosome have said even more ridiculous things in the last two days to extend this story into even more news cycles. This, at the very same time the team is attempting to sell individual tickets for the 2016 season. Unbelievable.

I woke up this morning to see that Levine had run his mouth about Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. because Diaz is taking the fans' -- and StubHub's -- side in this ticket issue. Diaz's spokesman, John Desio, told the New York Daily News:

“The borough president is a lifelong Yankee fan. The borough president’s favorite player was Graig Nettles. He lives and dies by the Yankees as do many people in the borough, the city and the world. This new policy on tickets combined with their COO’s elitist comments are not very fan friendly for the borough president or anyone else who loves the Yankees.” 

So how did Levine respond? In a mature, adult fashion befitting his reputation. By which I mean, he lashed out like a frat boy with anger management issues, the way he usually does. (How is this guy in a position of authority, anyway? I wouldn't trust him to run the fry station at McDonald's without spilling grease on himself when flying off the handle!)

Levine told ESPN's Darren Rovell, who first reported on Diaz' stance:

“It doesn’t surprise me given that we’ve stopped his endless funding requests. It does surprise me because the only time he showed up to Yankee Stadium was when he was on official business when he was comped. I guess there are no greater problems in the Bronx, that he needs to spend time on, than ticketing.” 

How is this comment possibly productive? It doesn't even make any sense. What, exactly, would be the "endless funding requests" a Bronx borough president would ask the Yankees for? Wouldn't it be the other way around?

And you can't complain that Diaz rarely shows up at Yankee games, and then whine that "I guess there are no greater problems in the Bronx, that he needs to spend time on, than ticketing." Well, most of us would think that enabling his constituents in the poorest borough in the city to get decently priced tickets is kind of important.

UPDATE: Shortly after writing this Squawk, I received an email from Diaz's office containing a copy of a letter the borough president sent to Levine, criticizing the policy. It's a pretty strongly worded missive! Read it here. 

That isn't the only time in recent days that Levine has flapped his gums. He and Trost recently talked to Bloomberg View sports columnist -- and Yankee fan -- Kavitha A. Davidson about the ticket policy. She writes about a less-discussed aspect of using mobile tickets. Fans will have to sign up at Ticketmaster, give the company personal information, and download an app in order to use the Yankees' mobile ticket feature. (I wrote about this last week, but she went to much greater detail on the new system and tried it out herself. "It seems there are still a few bugs to work out," she wrote.)

Anyhow, both Levine and Trost dismissed any concerns over the new policy. Levine insisted to the writer that third-party ticket brokers and StubHub are, Davidson writes, as "the source of much of the backlash against the new mobile system." Um, no, dude. Your team's fans are the main source of the backlash. Remember them?

In addition, according to the article, "Levine said Trost's comments were taken out of context and stressed that the Yankees' position is 'if you buy a legitimate ticket you're welcome to sit at Yankee Stadium,' whether or not you paid full price." Well, isn't that nice of them! And at any rate, we didn't take Trost's comments out of context. We took them in context. That's the problem!

Trost made let yet another elitist remark in insisting: "In today's world of millennials, I can't imagine anyone who's not smartphone savvy who wants to come to the ballpark," he said. "But when they do, they can get a hard-stock ticket." Oy. He needs to get out more.

Remember how Trost talked about Yankee fan ticket buyers who spent "a buck and a half" for premium tickets? I wrote that there was no way people were paying $1.50 a ticket for the fancy seats. But I missed an even more elitist remark that Trost was making with that. I have a friend who is a ticket broker. And he said that "a buck and a half" is a term in the business meaning $150. So Trost is looking down at fans who "only" spend $150 per Yankee ticket. For the rest of us, that sort of money for a three-hour regular season game is a splurge for a milestone birthday or something. In Trost's world, these people are the riff raff!

My friend Jason Keidel, who writes about sports for CBS New York, interviewed me this week about how a decision by the Yankees on February 15 to ban print-at-home tickets has morphed into a PR disaster for the team that is like the Energizer Bunny. It just keeps on going, and going, and going.

I talked about my part in that -- Squawking the next day about how the decision was about smashing StubHub and taking away fans' ability to buy tickets on the secondary market. Then I was interviewed for the New York Post the following day, and showed how Yankee fans were unhappy about this, at the very same time the team's spokesperson claimed that fans were thrilled over it. The very next morning, Yankees COO Lonn Trost popped up on WFAN to defend the policy, and blurted out his elitist opinion about Yankee ticket buyers.

This story has gone about as disastrously for the Yankees as anybody with a brain and common sense could have predicted. It's been raging for 10 days now, and shows no sign of abating. Are there any grownups in Yankeeland who will step in and stop this? Where is Hal Steinbrenner? What could possibly be more important for him to be doing than stopping this PR disaster? Good grief.

Lisa interviewed for CBS New York piece on Yankee ticket policy

CBS New York columnist Jason Keidel has weighed in on the fallout from the Yankees' move to ban print-at-home tickets and Lonn Trost's preferences for the type of fan to sit in the often-empty fancy seats. He interviewed Lisa for his piece New Ticket Policy Widens Divide Between Yankees, Everyday Fans and she is quoted throughout on topics ranging from Trost to admitting that the Mets now have the "better team" than the Yankees!

Yankees' COO Lonn Trost to the 99%: Drop dead

Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost has an elitist excuse for why secondary ticket sales are bad, and why the team is trying to stop any other parties from doing them but themselves. Neil Best of Newsday recounted his explanation, as told to WFAN's Boomer and Carton (emphasis added):

"The problem below market at a certain point is that if you buy a ticket in a very premium location and pay a substantial amount of money. It’s not that we don’t want that fan to sell it, but that fan is sitting there having paid a substantial amount of money for a ticket and [another] fan picks it up for a buck-and-a-half and sits there, and it’s frustrating to the purchaser of the full amount."

Trost then added a comment that raised eyebrows on social media because of its seemingly elitist undertones. "And quite frankly," he said, "the fan may be someone who has never sat in a premium location. So that’s a frustration to our existing fan base."

So basically, only the 1% deserve to get to sit in the good seats in Yankee Stadium. And the 99% better know their place, because they don't belong in the premium location. And their very presence might upset those who paid full price for such seats.

Left unsaid was how these people would know that these interlopers paid less. Unless, you know, they weren't the "right" race or social class to be there. Not to mention that the idea that somebody could pay $1.50 for premium seats is ludicrous.

Whose idea in Yankeeland, exactly, was it to get Trost to defend this policy? He is about the worst spokesman for the team imaginable. He's the guy who blamed Hurricane Sandy for slow ticket sales. Who defended charging $2600 for the top seats at the new Yankee Stadium, saying "Some people can afford to fly first class and others can't." Who justified keeping kids from getting in front of the moat to see batting practice. Who called the obstructed seats in the current stadium's outfield merely "architecturally shadowed."  Who decided it was a good idea in 2013 to pick a fight with StubHub, claiming that they were "greedy," accused them, with no evidence, of counterfeit tickets and banned them from doing e-ticket sales. Then who had to back off on that plan when Yankee ticket sales plummeted.

It looks like he apparently was incensed by reports in the newspapers, and by bloggers about how the Yankees' new ticket policy would keep fans from buying last-minute tickets on StubHub. "Unfortunately, the papers, the bloggers have it wrong," he claimed, and said he presented the New York Post and the New York Daily News with the "facts." (An aside: Speaking of facts, I know for a fact, through somebody in the know, that I am one of the very bloggers he was unhappy about. I can't tell you how much that warms my heart!)

Trost also said fans could still use StubHub's "last minute pickup center that's right up from Yankee Stadium" to pick up hard copy tickets. Funny how Trost described that ticket center's location that way. Because when he first picked a fight with them, the team sued to make StubHub close their truly convenient location at 68 East 161st Street, saying it was too close to the ballpark. And StubHub had to move to a less convenient location for fans at the Bronx Terminal Market, Level 1, at 651 River Ave and 151st Street. which is almost 1/2 mile away from the stadium. All to prevent the team's own fans from using them.

He also blatantly played fast and loose with the truth about StubHub when it came to them being able to do mobile tickets."We know that StubHub can transfer tickets on mobile. If they choose not to, that's not our business." 

That is untrue. I reached out to Cameron Papp, StubHub's Communications Manager, to get clarification. Papp told me that they would not be able to do so without the Yankees' agreeing to this:

"As of now, due to this new policy, StubHub will only be able to offer the listings of hard tickets for Yankees games. If there’s enough time before the game, the seller will send their hard tickets through UPS directly to the buyer. If there’s not enough time before the game, the seller can send or drop off their tickets at our ticket office outside of the stadium ahead of time for the buyer to pick them up on game day."

Papp also gave me this official statement from StubHub:

"StubHub believes that the best customer experience is one on a free and open marketplace where fans can buy and sell tickets whenever and wherever they want. Yankees fans will still be able to purchase tickets on StubHub up until game time" if they go to the StubHub ticket office."

But the electronic method is out. Glenn Lehrmann of StubHub explained this to Neil Best:

"The only way we can transfer tickets is if the Yankees and Ticketmaster provide us with an API [application programming interface] feed that would allow us to do that,” he said. “It’s protected, and they have not granted us access, nor have they granted anyone access. If they wanted to grant us access, this is a different conversation."

* In addition, Trost claimed that people were printing out "multiple copies" of print-at-home tickets on "copy machines" and that "multiple people" were getting in. "And we don't even know how many," he said. Which is BS. Print-at-home tickets have a scannable barcode. And you can print one hundred copies of that ticket, but only the first person who had the ticket would get in. If the Stadium was somehow letting people in without correctly scanning their ticket, that's their incompetence, isn't it, not StubHub's or anybody else's.

* He also talked about Eric Schneiderman, New York's Attorney General, partially blaming him for the move to mobile. But he never mentioned that Schneiderman was looking into the team's policy of having a price floor in the Yankees Ticket Exchange; it may be ruled as anti-competitive. Gee, I wonder why.

Anyhow, it's really gut-wrenching to see such a twit represent the team I love. And to show such blatant contempt for fans like me. At a time when the Yankees face increased competition for ticket sales from the Mets, they ought to be doing their best to put fannies in the seats, not get those fannies to decide to sit at home on the couch and watch the games on TV instead. Good grief.

Lisa quoted twice in New York Post ticket story

Squawker Lisa's takedown of the Yankees' new policy of no longer accepting print-at-home tickets caught the attention of the New York Post, who interviewed her for their story on the ticket travesty. Lisa is quoted midway through the article and again at the end. Go Lisa!

Yankees screw over fans -- again -- with new ticket policy

One of my favorite sayings in real life is "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining." (I have been known to use the more profane version of this expression as well!) I stole it from Judge Judy. In case you don't know what the expression means, it is basically saying, "Don't screw me over and then act like you had nothing to do with it."

I couldn't help but think of that expression when I heard about the Yankees' new ticket policy. The team announced in a press release this week that they were finally going to accept mobile tickets. But the real story is that they're no longer accepting PDFs or printouts of online game tickets. Here is how the organization spun this news:

As the Yankees are continuously striving to implement technological advances to provide our fans with a ticketing experience that is unparalleled, convenient, safe and secure, the Yankees are excited to announce, as a complement to traditional hard stock paper tickets, the availability of mobile ticketing for the 2016 baseball season. Print-at-home paper tickets (PDFs) are being discontinued so as to further combat fraud and counterfeiting of tickets associated with print-at-home paper tickets (PDFs). In addition to traditional hard stock paper tickets, the Yankees will be offering the opportunity for fans to receive mobile tickets on a fan's Smartphone. For more information on mobile ticketing, visit yankees.com/mobile.

Mobile ticketing is an advance that is long past due. But the team discontinuing print-at-home paper tickets has very little to do with combatting fraud and counterfeiting and everything to do with yet another money grab. Because guess what? Hard stock paper tickets can be counterfeited as well.

The counterfeit tickets Michael Kay
had purchased for "Hamilton." Photo
courtesy of @RealMichaelKay

And how do I know this? Because I heard Yankees TV broadcaster Michael Kay tell his ESPN Radio listeners on the very same day as this ticket announcement about his disastrous Valentine's Day, in which he tried to use tickets to the very popular Broadway show Hamilton that were purchased on Craigslist, only to discover that the ducats were counterfeit. And, as you can see from the picture Kay posted on Twitter, these were traditional tickets, not PDFs of etickets!

No, the real reason the Yankees are eliminating print-at-home tickets is to put StubHub and other secondary ticket markets out of the business of selling Yankee tickets, and to move such sales to the Yankees Ticket Exchange, where the Yanks make money on every resale. (It wasn't enough that they make money on the initial sale of the tix; they have to make money on the resale as well!) And where the site has a ticket floor on prices, so that they don't get too low. (Savvy fans know that StubHub can have great deals on Yankee tickets, especially when it gets close to the day of the game, due to fans wanting to sell their tickets quickly.)

Funny how big businesses like the Yankees praise the free market -- until it can negatively affect them, and then they put in artificial measures to protect their businesses!

Incidentally, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a few weeks ago that he was looking into the Yankees Ticket Exchange, as well as the NFL's secondary ticket market program, because of that very reason -- the price floor being an anti-competitive measure. I will be curious to see what happens with that.

Anyhow, there are going to be several repercussions to the Yankees' new policy. Forget about buying tickets on StubHub on the day of a game. If you want to get tickets, you will have to go to the Yankees' own site to do so. This also means that they will gather your personal info when you sign up at yankees.com for an account in order to download the tickets. 

In addition, you'd better make sure your smartphone is fully charged when you get to the ballpark, or you won't be able to use your e-ticket. And given how quickly iPhones run out of juice -- I have gone from 100% to zero power on my phone just going from Staten Island to Manhattan! -- this can be a real problem.

And finally, the team doesn't seem to be aware -- or to care -- that not everybody has a smartphone these days, for various reasons: cost, fear of technology, etc. And that they are essentially shutting those fans out from being able to buy tickets online. 

You know, given the uninspiring product the Yankees are planning on putting on the field this year, the team ought to be looking for more fan-friendly ways to get people into games, not looking for ways to shut them out. This new policy is really shortsighted, and sounds like something Randy Levine and Lonn Trost cooked up to increase the team's bottom line -- and screw over their own fanbase.

The irony is, though, that it will mean fewer people will buy Yankee tickets online at StubHub at the last minute. Which means fewer people going through the door and buying food and drinks and souvenirs. Does anybody ever think things out in Yankeeland? 

These sorts of shenanigans are why I could at least appreciate the gesture the Mets made with their Spring Training Sendoff event that Jon and I attended this week. While the day was a hot mess, I can see the team was trying to give their fans something for free to show some appreciation for their loyalty. The last time I can remember the Yankees doing something similar to show appreciation for their fans was in 2009, when they opened up the ballpark for fans to watch Game 4 of the 2009 World Series in. And that was a long time ago indeed. Oy.

Lonn Trost and Yankees cry uncle on StubHub; will allow electronic tickets

Remember the whole to-do this winter about how the Yankees came up with their own ticket exchange system with Ticketmaster, snubbing StubHub? And how the only way Yankee fans were going to be able to print out electronic tickets on the secondary market was with the Yankees Ticket Exchange? And that because of this, StubHub was going to have to open up a location by Yankee Stadium for fans to get their tickets before the game (a move the Yankees fought in court)?

Well, guess what? The Yankees have cried uncle on StubHub, folding like a cheap suit on the electronic tickets issue. They will now allow fans to print electronic tickets from StubHub and other secondary market sites from a window of 48 hours to three hours before the game. Oh, and that three-hour window before the game also applies for the Yankees' own ticket exchange, so it's not like you can get the tickets any later from them. This is a huge, huge concession on the Yankees' part, and it takes away the need for StubHub to have that location by the Stadium. After all, if fans can print out tickets at home in that time frame, they won't need to go to a StubHub office to do so.

If a Yankee tree falls in the forest...

Only thing is, nobody in the mainstream media seems to have noticed that the Yankees have made such a big concession. But blogger Bob of BobsBlitz.com did. He wrote about how Yankee bigwig Lonn Trost, who talked last month on Mike Francesa's WFAN radio show about how fans would no longer would be able to get e-tickets from StubHub, has changed his tune.

Yet Trost won't admit that the Yankees have changed their tune and reversed policy. He tried to act like this was the deal all along, and denied that this was a change in policy, even though Francesa kept on asking him about this. (Click here to see the video.) Granted, fans cannot download and print out the tickets before that 48-hour time frame unless they use the Yankees' official ticket exchange, but that really isn't a big deal for most people.

So why did Trost and the Yankees change their mind? Bob's Blitz sums it up on what has happened since Trost's February pronouncement:

A little over a month later fans have been bombarded with Yankee ads for season and single tickets. Banners, radio, TV. 24/7 -- why? Because they can't sell anywhere near the amount of tickets they forecasted internally. And the one way to, they hope, increase the worst sales they've seen in over a decade? Allow StubHub users to print tickets during a window of 48-3 hours before game time.

You know, sorta like a partnership.

Oh, and then lie about the 02/12/13 conversation to Mike Francesa to cover up the change of course due to the poor sales.

Yep. I've noticed the Yankee internet banner ads everywhere. I have also noticed that there are plenty of tickets available, even for opponents like the Red Sox and Mets, on Yankees.com, and that discount sites like Goldstar.com are offering half-priced tickets for the Yankees.

And don't forget that if tickets are not sold on secondary markets, or if would-be season ticket holders won't buy tickets because they are afraid they won't be able to resell them in those markets, that this means those seats will be empty. This not only looks bad on TV, but it means fewer sales at the concession and souvenir stands. So after all the smearing we heard from the Yankeeland front office this winter, insinuating that StubHub was the reason for everything bad facing the Yankees, now the team has caved on letting them sell those tickets.

I have to wonder when anybody in Yankeeland will ever face any accountability for making such bad decisions. Picking a fight with StubHub, who is an official partner of MLB, never seemed to make any sense. Yet the front office has spent more time on that this winter than with coming up with a coherent plan for this team's future. And the NYC sports media doesn't seem to notice -- or care. Shocking.

Lonn Trost, Hal Steinbrenner show the Yankees' real priority: Smashing StubHub

I can't remember a spring training when I was this cynical about the Yankees' prospects for the season. World Series or bust? Really? More like $189M or bust.

That's what happens when you have a disastrous offseason like this one. I mean, really -- what Brian Cashman moves, exactly, excited you this winter? Signing the injury-ridden ex-Boston Red Sox Kevin Youkilis for $12 million, way above what anybody else would pay him? Going with Francisco Cervelli and Chris Stewart as your catchers? Starting spring without a right-handed hitting outfielder?

Then you have Hal Steinbrenner, who is so clueless that he told the Wall Street Journal he was "surprised" to hear of the fans' "anger." Really, Hal? Where have you been, exactly? Oh, I know. You've been worried about the evil StubHub, the real enemy.

I know it's become a cliche to wonder "What would George Steinbrenner do?" when it comes to any new development in Yankeeland, but when the only time you hear the team's co-owner show any passion, it's about smashing StubHub, it's pretty sad. Here's what Hal recently said in a statement about the Yankees moving to Ticketmaster for their new official secondary market venue:

"The Yankees Ticket Exchange will be a safe, convenient, reliable and expedient way to purchase and sell guaranteed authentic Yankees tickets," Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner said in a statement. "It is unfortunate that unscrupulous resellers utilize deceptive practices and tactics and employ unofficial websites, all of which give rise to counterfeit tickets."

I'm sorry if I missed this epidemic of counterfeit tickets, especially given that StubHub guarantees all of the tickets they sell. The real issue, of course, is that the Yankees are greedy, and even though they have already gotten paid the first time around for ticket sales, they don't actually want to see a free market when it comes to reselling those tickets. They also don't like it when the secondary market shows the real value of those tickets, which is a lot lower than the Yanks would like to think they are.

Oh, and I have to laugh at the idea of anything connected with Ticketmaster as being fan-friendly. They are the ones who came up with "convenience fees" to print own your tickets. And while the new program's fees for sellers are 5% for season ticket holders, it is 15% for those who are not season ticket holders.

Lonn Trost blames Hurricane Sandy and snowstorm for slow ticket sales

Then there's the Yanks' Lonn Trost, who has made his contempt for those terrible Yankee fans who actually look for deals on tickets abundantly clear. He was recently on Mike Francesa talking his nonsense about ticket speculators, and comparing it the the Securities and Exchange Commission needing to crack down on short sellers.

Trost also claimed that slow ticket sales were due to Hurricane Sandy and the recent snowstorm. Huh? The hurricane was October 29, and Nemo was a typical winter snowstorm when it came to New York City (New England and Long Island was another story.) And there is zero evidence that either of them have had any effect on ticket sales.

If the Steinbrenner kids actually knew anything about business, they would realize that the lower prices on StubHub are not due to the bogeyman of ticket speculators. And counterfeit tickets are not really an issue. The real issue is that this isn't a very interesting, inspiring team right now, the tickets are way overpriced, and the novelty of the new stadium has worn off.

Trost also complained about StubHub being greedy, making 25% on each ticket sold. Strong words from a guy who sells $1300 seats for a baseball game. He also threatened to sue the organization for daring to have an office across the street from the stadium. (Right now, StubHub can still sell Yankees tickets, but fans can no longer print the tickets out on their home computer. The office would allow them to get hard copies of the tickets at their location.)

At any rate, after seeing what the Yankees choose to focus on, why should I be excited about this season? What is the team motto for 2013? Another year older and even more injury-ridden? You'll pay more for tickets and you'll like it? Good grief.

What's going on with Yankee ticket sales? Subway Series tickets are being discounted by the team!

New York Yankees president Randy Levine can blather all he want about the evil StubHub somehow lowering attendance, but what does he have to say about this? Goldstar, with the full permission and cooperation of the New York Yankees, is marketing discounted tickets to the Subway Series! Yes, you heard that right. Not only is the Subway Series, usually a perennial hot ticket, not sold out at Yankee Stadium this year, but the team is having to market tickets for below face value in order to get fans into the ballpark!

Right now, field level, main level, and terrace level tickets are available at a 20% discount for Friday and Sunday. These are some of the better seats in the ballpark. The tickets are going for $48-$72 for Friday, and $64-$180 on Sunday.

Goldstar is a discount ticket service that works more like Theatermania than StubHub in that the entities themselves market direct tickets for their newsletter and website. For example, Squawker Jon and I went to a concert at Avery Fisher Hall last week, which had discounted tickets through the service. The Yankees have sold some of their Audi seating and other more expensive seating in the past through Goldstar, but this is the first time I have seen them market big games like the Subway Series through the service.

The thing of it is, though, that this is one series where StubHub prices are being sold for above face value -- at least the less expensive seats like the grandstand and bleachers and standing room only. So it's very interesting that the Yanks are doing this for this series, but telling, in that these are pricey seats that have never moved from Yankees.com, due to lack of interest. Hmmmm, maybe the Yanks ought to realize that those seats are overpriced in the first place.

In other news, Andrew Marchand of ESPN New York had an "exclusive" story where some unnamed Yankee official fulminated about how StubHub was unfair to season ticket holders. Oh, please. The next time the Yanks care about the Joe Average season ticket holder -- especially those holding partial plans -- will be the first time. As Squawker reader EateggsEveryMorning put it:

Thank you, great post. I agree on every point. I had the 15-game Sunday plan for many years and loved it. Then they built the new stadium and switched my plan to a Monday-Tuesday plan without telling me. I couldn't go to most of the games, and could barely sell them for $5 on StubHub. Now they've taken all the premium Sunday games out of the Sunday plan and added 3 mid-week games, so it's not even really a Sunday plan. That, the no-post-season-guarantee thing, higher ticket prices and higher parking fees makes it a non-seller. Basically less for more. I've been contacted 3 times this year by the Yankees begging me to buy the plan. Not a chance.

The unnamed Yankee official also claimed that professional ticket brokers were "shorting" the sales, and claimed that StubHub was allowing tickets to be put on sale before they were printed. Um, guys, season ticket holders know what seats they have, which is how they listed them. Why is that so difficult for them to understand?

I've heard and read all sorts of horror stories about how the Yankes have messed with those with partial plans -- making their tickets worse, taking away Opening Day and Old Timers' Day, adding games they don't want, and taking away games they do want, and raising prices. Now we are supposed to believe that Randy Levine et al are just concerned about their season ticket holders? Puh-lease.

There is a lower demand for tickets this year, which is why prices are dropping. But instead of examining why that is so, Randy Levine and his crew would rather come up with conspiracy theories about the evils of StubHub, the entity that has done a heck of a lot more to make reasonably priced tickets affordable and available to the average fan than the Yanks have.

This is one of the down sides of being a Yankee fan -- an arrogant front office with entitled people who, at best, take their fans for granted, or at worst, screw their fans over time and time again. And we're stuck with all of them for the foreseeable future, because the Steinbrenner kids, unlike their father, never see the need to ever fire anybody. Lovely.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Guess What? There Are Still Yankees Opening Day Tickets Available!

What's going on in Yankeeland with the ticket market these days? It was shocking to me last year that I was able to get tickets for below face value on StubHub for Game 5 of the ALCS. Now I see in the Bergen Record that there are reasonably-priced tickets available on StubHub for Opening Day. I checked for myself, and sure enough, there are tickets starting at around $24 for grandstand seats.

And not only that, but the Yankees themselves still have tickets available for Opening Day, albeit the pricey seats. The Bergen Record article sez that "the Yankees’ own website was selling tickets at face value for the $350 Delta Sky 360 section and for the $625 Legends Suites section — the latter being the best seats in the house, right behind home plate." Wow! You'd think Opening Day would be a sellout, but apparently not -- yet!

I don't know what to make of this. Is this a sign that fans are not quite as psyched for this year's team than they were in previous years? I'm not sure, but I'm bummed I have something to do tomorrow morning, which will keep me from going to the game in person!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Thanks to fans with no faith, we're getting a sweet deal on Yankee tickets

As I noted in an article today for The Faster Times, many Yankee fans have apparently given up hope on the series, if all the rock-bottom prices on tickets for Game 5 are any indication. There are all sorts of great deals to be had on tickets in the secondary market. So, I just scooped up grandstand tickets just to the left of home plate for today's game. Price was just $26 dollars a ticket, below face value. Cool!

So, win or lose, Squawker Jon and I will be at Game 5. Anti-Yankee fan Jon will be cheering on the Rangers, and I will be rooting for the Bombers, win or lose, until the very end. Let's hope at the end of the day that Jon is the one with the Nolan Ryan Face and not me!


What do you think? Tell us about it!

How this Yankee fan became a Mets VIP

Guess what? I'm in with the in-crowd in Metsland. And it's all because I spent 97 cents on Mets tickets!

Here's the deal. Squawker Jon was all pleased last week when he got an email from the Mets saying this:

Dear Mets Ticket Buyer on StubHub:

As a Mets ticket purchaser on StubHub during the 2009 season, we are pleased to offer you an exclusive "Pre-Sale" opportunity to purchase single game tickets to 2010 Mets regular season home games (excluding only the Subway Series) in advance of our general public sales opening on Sunday, March 7.....

A limited number of tickets for Opening Day, April 5 will be available in the Pre-Sale. You may purchase a maximum of four tickets for Opening Day, subject to availability.

Little did he know that I got the very same "exclusive" letter, thanks to me digging deep last season and buying us Mets tickets for 97 cents each. We even got the same pre-sale code!

So tickets go on sale this morning at 10 a.m., and I've been furiously going through the promotion schedule, trying to figure what great giveaway day I should aim for with my pre-sale opportunity. Should I try to get the Johan Santana koozie? The Dunkin' Donuts gift card? The Jose Reyes drawstring bag? Maybe the Jason Bay bobblehead is where it's at.

What about August 1, the date for the Mets 2010 Hall of Fame Induction? Which members of the Brooklyn Dodgers will Fred Wilpon honor this time - Duke Snider? Pee Wee Reese? Oh, wait, there are actually going to be Mets honored! Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden are the two biggest names. Of course, both have more World Series rings as Yankees than as Mets, but I digress.

Maybe I should try for Mets Opening Day tickets, which are shockingly still available. When the Yankees hold their Opening Day this season, they'll hoist their 2009 World Championship flag. I hear that the Mets will put up their own flag to commemorate their 2009 season - the Red Cross flag!


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How I got two main-level Yankee tickets for $12 each

Squawker Jon and I were all set to take in our first game at the new Yankee Stadium last night, but rain messed with our plans. I guess we can say we were a part of the first rainout at the New Yankee Stadium, though. Whoopee.

It was a bad day all around, between the rain, and Subway Squawkers being snubbed - yet again - for a Pulitzer Prize. Bummer.

Anyhow, as Jon and I still wanted to be part of the first night game at the NYS, I decided yesterday to try to get tickets for Tuesday night's game. Not only was I very successful, but I also got to see exactly how desperate the Yanks are to unload tickets!

Tuesday's game against Oakland is one of the Yankees' discount nights, with $5 grandstand seats. I called Ticketmaster to see if any of those seats were available, but they were all gone.

However, when I asked the agent to find me the cheapest available tickets, he actually found me a good deal. He offered me two Main tickets in left field (the light green tix on the Yankees ticket map) which were - get this - marked down in price!

Instead of paying $55 each ($60 each on the day of the game) for these tickets, the Ticketmaster guy offered me two of those tickets for a total of $62 for both, including service charges.

Now that's a deal. I've never had somebody at Ticketmaster ever give me a discount on anything, and this was a really good one - it was even better than a two-for-one offer.

But I turned this incredible deal down, because I found an even better deal on StubHub.

I found similar tickets on StubHub to the one I was offered via Ticketmaster. But these ducats were only $12 each, plus service charges. So it worked out to $34 for two tickets. Granted, the season ticket holder selling this ticket most likely paid $45 for each ticket, and not $55 or $60, but it's still a considerable discount from face value.

Now, I realize Yankees-Oakland doesn't have quite the same cachet of, say, Yankees-Red Sox, but this is only the fifth game in the new ballpark, and, as noted above, it is the first night game. Plus, the game marks the first time Jason Giambi is back in town.

And while these tickets are in a better place than I can usually afford, they're not exactly the best seats in the house. But if the Yanks are apparently having a hard time moving these ducats, I just don't see how they're going to be able to move their three-and-four figure seats, without quietly marking them down as well. It's going to be interesting to watch what happens next.

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