The New York Yankees have agreed to a partnership with StubHub, the nationwide ticket-resale broker, making it the team’s official ticket re-seller, according to a news release from StubHub.
The deal will start next month and will run until the 2022 season. The new product will allow StubHub to be completely integrated into the Yankees ticket system, replacing the Yankees Ticket Exchange.
Although financial terms were not available, a source close to the negations said that the price of the deal will depend on revenue share, or how many Yankee’s tickets are sold on StubHub.
The deal comes after dwindling attendance and criticism from fans about the Yankee’s ticket policy. According to the New York Times, the Yankees have long accused StubHub of underselling the value of their tickets by making them cheaper on a secondary market, where as the Yankees have been accused of making their tickets too expensive.
When the team changed their ticket policies, it banned print-at-home and PDF ticketing in favor of mobile ticketing. The change has made it harder for fans to buy tickets through StubHub. For those who bought tickets through StubHub, they had to pick up them up at a StubHub office located more than a half-mile away from Yankee Stadium, ESPN reports. According to the Times, many fans who had trouble with mobile ticketing had to wait in lines to resolve their issues.
According to the new release, StubHub will adhere to the existing mobile ticket policy, meaning all tickets delivered will be mobile. Currently, more than 250,000 fans have entered Yankee Stadium using mobile tickets, but an expected 600,000 plus are expected by the end of this season. This anticipated number is expected to be the largest among all teams in baseball, according to the news release.
Although ticketing has been a problem for the team, i t has eased stadium entry with fingerprint technology. As of last summer, fans could skip the traditional security line, and instead step up to a screen or mounted tablet where they lay down their finger. The technology would then recognize the fan and their information, authorizing them entry without going through security first.