What’s going on with Yankee season tickets?

I wrote last week about the rising cost of tickets at the new stadium. And the controversy over obstructed view – or should I say “architectually shadowed,” as per Lonn Trost – seats is just one of the issues Yankee fans have been squawking about.

Squawker reader Jennie weighs in with her experience with the Yanks’ ticket office:

For the last 6 years I’ve had a 20-game flex plan, with seats in the tier reserve behind home plate. Two years ago my seats cost $18 each – last year they cost $27 each.

I’d been waiting to get an email from the Yankees regarding my relocation, but hadn’t received anything. A friend told me that what i needed to go was go into my online account and the information would be there (how i was supposed to know this, God knows). Anyway, he was right – the info WAS there. And imagine my surprise when U discovered I had been allocated a 20-game plan, but in field level seats, waaaaaay waaaaaay out in the outfield, practically as far as the bleachers – at $85 per seat!

At least that made the decision easy – I have declined the allocation. In what universe would I want to pay more than three times the amount I paid previously, for seats where I can’t even tell who’s at bat without binoculars?

Jennie also writes that she has heard a ton of other Yankee ticket horror stories from friends, and about how friends stuck with bad tickets end up selling a bunch of them via StubHub. She notes:

It’s really hard to understand how the yankees could have screwed things up so much that NOBODY is getting the locations they want, on the dates they want, at the price they want to pay.

On the other hand, StubHub seems to be doing quite well out of this – there are thousands of tickets available for just about every game, some even at below face value.

And the Yankees will profit twice from those tickets – once when selling them to the fans, and the second time via their profit-sharing arrangement with StubHub. Also, remember that season ticket holders caught selling their tix anywhere but StubHub will get their tickets revoked. Nice!

Kevin of Big League Stew points out that there are some MLB teams with 81-game season ticket plans that cost less than it does for two people to go to one game in the $325 luxury seats at the new Yankee Stadium. But given how much advertising that the Yankees are advertising for these expensive ducats and boxes – they’re all over the New York Times and Wall Street Journal – I don’t think the tix are exactly selling like hotcakes.

But what do you think? Leave us a comment!