Classic Rant #694 (March 13, 2012): Ticket Snafu

As most of you regular readers know, I am a Yankee fan, have been my whole life, and will be when I leave this earth.

I have rooted for them through thick and thin, during good years and bad, during championship years and years where they fell flat.

But each year, I am becoming more incensed at their ticket policy for the peons, the people who go to the games maybe once or twice a year.

The new Yankee Stadium seats around 54,000 for baseball, and less the higher-priced seats, the team basically sells out each and every game.

That's 81 games where the only seats that can be had are the ones that cost $1,000 or more.

Sorry, not in my league.

But the very last seat in the house, in the very last row, is a season ticket seat, no doubt.

This year, with seats at a premium, the Yankees has instituted a policy where they are running a lottery just to have a chance to buy single-game tickets from them.

That's right. To get tickets to one game, you have to be put into a lottery. If you are one of the "winners" of the lottery, you have the opportunity to buy tickets from them for single games.

Yes, it has gotten ridiculous. Soon, they will be selling seat licenses like football does.

How does a family who wants a day at the ballpark manage to get tickets?

They don't, that's how.

Or they go on one of the ticket broker sites. That is really the only way you can get tickets to a single game at Yankee Stadium, but you will pay for this privilege, paying much more for the ticket in nosebleed land than it is actually worth.

That's what I am probably going to do. My family and I want to go to one game, just one game, and it's doubtful that we are going to win any ticket lottery, so we'll have to go the StubHub route.

I wish some of our politicians would look into this.

Sure, there are bigger problems, but what the Yankees are basically doing is catering to the elite fan, those who can afford season tickets, while shutting out the average Joe who can just afford a single game.

And that is wrong.

We go to Florida each year on vacation. Since we are in Orlando, we usually try to take in a Rays game in St. Petersburg, and we will do so this year.

No problem there. They are lucky if they get 10,000 fans per game, so you have your choice on tickets.

And with the Rays, sometimes if you go through a broker, you can get a better deal on a ticket.

That is what we've done, and we will be sitting right behind the visiting team's dugout for the game we are seeing at Tropicana Field in July.

Look, the Yankees are the Yankees. They are the most successful sports franchise in the world, and they can basically do what they want with their tickets.

But not to offer families some sort of deal to take in a day at the ballpark is ludicrous.

I am sure I will pay an arm and a leg to see them this season, just for the one game, when I go the broker route.

But there's nothing like being out at the ballpark to see a game, so I am going to have to manage.

But it just isn't fair.