Yankee Stadium attendance is down 3.6 percent so far this year — greater than the 3 percent drop last season — and the team is blaming StubHub for its gate woes.To me, having plenty of affordable tickets is as "fan-friendly" as it gets, but I guess "fan-friendly" was a euphemism for something else.
“We believe there are serious issues with the StubHub relationship,” team president Randy Levine told The Post yesterday. “We are actively reviewing more fan-friendly alternatives for next year.”
The Bronx Bombers and other Major League Baseball teams have bellyached about StubHub for a couple of years — as more fans turn to the low-priced online reseller for tickets instead of buying directly from the team.
The Yanks and other teams claim tickets are priced too low on StubHub.
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Compared with last season’s total average attendance, the Yanks’ 25-game average is off 9 percent.
Overall, MLB attendance is up 7 percent. Much of that is due to the Miami Marlins moving into a new stadium.
Plus, the Yanks had been the first or second best-selling MLB team through their first three seasons in the new stadium. This year they are only the fifth best-selling team.
The Yankees shouldn't blame StubHub for their problems drawing fans and then take it out on those fans by ridding the market of those affordable tickets. There are reasons the fans no longer want to go to games, but StubHub is not one of them. Maybe knocking down a piece of American history to put up a billion-and-a-half dollar knock-off wasn't necessary. Maybe steadily pricing the average fan out of most of the good seats was also mistake. And maybe combining those things with a new penny-pinching approach to free agency was the worst move of all, if of course selling tickets was the goal.
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