Yankees Urged to Stop Canceling Tickets

By Alfred Branch, Jr.

Seeking to go beyond the proposal repealing the state’s anti-scalping law, a New York State legislator is proposing a plan that would stop the Yankees and other sports teams from canceling the season tickets of fans who resell them.

As reported in the “New York Post,” state Rep. Joseph Morelle’s proposal would prohibit sports teams from becoming the exclusive resellers of tickets, a move the Yankees are trying to establish by creating a site that would allow season-ticket holders to resell their tickets. Morelle’s proposal would also repeal any caps placed on the amount for which people can resell event tickets.

According to the Yankees.com, the team does not “and will not tolerate scalping or reselling of Tickets in any manner at any time.” Team officials monitor sites, such as Stubhub, Yahoo Auctions and eBay daily, and upon catching a violator they will “terminate your Ticket Account and any other Ticket Accounts which you are listed as the Account Holder.” The account will be cancelled at the end of the regular season, and the season-ticket holder will not be allow to buy playoff tickets nor will they be re-offered the chance to buy season tickets in the future.

Yankees officials did not answer a request for comment at press time. The Post reported that more than 100 season-ticket holders had their privileges revoked in 2006 after they were caught reselling tickets online. Howard Rubenstein, spokesman for the team, was quoted in the paper as saying “The Yankees are formulating a plan that will be completed shortly and that will be in the best interests of the fans. Until that time, they will reserve comment.”

With support from Gov. Eliot Spitzer, ticket brokers and the League of American Theaters and Producers, which lobbies on behalf of Broadway, New York’s scalping law is poised to expire in June, making ticket reselling legal.