My Love/Hate Relationship with Stubhub

Let me get one thing out there right now. I love Stubhub. It's singlehandedly revolutionized the secondary market for event ticket sales. I no longer am forced to endure the unpleasant experience of haggling with nefarious characters in dark alleys for overpriced tickets that may or may not allow me entrance into the stadium when I walk up to the gate. In this day and age of electronic ticket scanners, I'd go as far as to say the security of Stubhub is an absolute necessity for the baseball traveller that has journeyed sometimes thousands of miles to attend a sold out game.

I know Stubhub has allowed me to attend sold out events that I never would have dreamed of attending ten years ago. It's a true open marketplace that cannot be easily manipulated by a handful of "ticket brokers" who conspire together to buy up all the tickets they can and keep supply artificially low. Because of this open marketplace, I've attended a World Series game, NLCS games, Home Run Derby, All-Star game, and NHL playoff games for prices not much above face value. If you know when to wait, and when to buy, you can often do better on Stubhub than through individual team websites.

With that being said, I hate Stubhub as well. Two of my life goals were to attend a World Series game and an All-Star Game , and I made those happen in the space of less than a year by attending Game 2 of the 2011 World Series in St. Louis and the 2012 All Star Game in Kansas City.

Stubhub made that possible. My greatest tangible memories of those events should be encapsulated in my ticket stubs. The ticket stub, to me, is the highest form of sports memorabilia. It proves you were there...right down to the row and seat. Yet, because of Stubhub, I don't have a true ticket stub for either event, and I have to live with that. Instead, I have two pieces of computer paper to show for it, and to a ticket stub snob like myself, it could just as well be toilet paper.

The lengths that I've gone to to try to make up for this, to me, major issue with Stubhub are severe. I've tried everything really. First, I thought I could live with buying a top of the line printer, printing the Stubhub passes on computer paper, and using a paper cutter to make them look like real ticket stubs. It's just not the same.

So, the next step was to start buying an extra seat, usually the cheapest seat in the house so that I had an actual ticket stub as a momento of my travels. Try explaining to your wife why you need to buy an extra ticket to a game that you will never use. She's learned to accept my eccentricities, but it took some doing.

Still, I know that isn't my actual seat. No matter how much I try, I know I didn't sit there, or even in that section. I ended up buying ticket stubs for the World Series game off of ebay, but I'll always know that I didn't sit in that seat.

Luckily, I found someone sitting next to me at the All-Star game who were more than willing to part with their ticket stubs for free. It was like they were giving me pure gold. Somehow, it seems more palatable to have the stubs for the seats that were right next to mine (if I can't have my own).

Maybe this is nitpicking. Like I said, because of Stubhub, I've been able to attend truly world class events at a fraction of the relative price they would have cost me 10 years ago. Considering MLB's partnership with Stubhub, I would even pay good money if the teams ticket offices would offer a service where they'd reprint the tickets for you on actual tickets. One has to think there could be a solution that would keep the ticket stub from going the way of the Dodo. I just wish that my most cherished souvenier didn't have to be collateral damage in this new world for sports fans that Stubhub has created.

2 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of Ballpark Chasers to add comments!

Join Ballpark Chasers

Comment by Bill Pritchard (29) on May 12, 2013 at 9:40am: I'm going to get my Rockies tickets reprinted; they sent me the generic Ticketmaster prints. Pretty disappointed in that, I wish teams would get away from Ticketmaster. I got Red Sox and Phillies tickets this year, those were nice prints.

Comment by Michael J. Torson on May 11, 2013 at 3:29pm: Anyone here who's had tickets reprinted at the box office because you wanted the stadium design on your ticket stub, have they been willing to do it at Turner Field? My tickets showed up as generic ticketmaster stock. Wondering if they are one of the stadiums that's typically willing to do it. Thanks.

Comment by Ernie on May 2, 2013 at 5:12pm: Totally agree!!

Comment by Tom on April 28, 2013 at 6:20am: I'm in the same boat as you and I no longer use SH to purchase tickets. I had an issue last season buying tickets to a Mets game from an online ticket broker. I contacted the seller before purchasing the tickets to ensure that they were hard tickets, which he said they were. I was frustrated and annoyed when I received a pair of etickets in the mail. I sent an email to both the Mets and the broker to see if there was a way to exchange the tickets or reprint the ticket stubs. The Mets ticket office said that there was nothing that they could do. The woman from the brokerage who responded to me was very understanding of my interest in collecting ticket stubs. She told me that there wasn't anything she could do for me prior to the game, but that once the game had been played she would mail me an unused ticket stub. Sure enough, a week after the game I received a large sized season ticket style stub to the game. I now typically only use this broker or eBay to buy tickets to games.

Comment by Bill Pritchard (29) on April 26, 2013 at 7:15pm: I feel like you are in my head when you wrote this lol... I've bought cheap seats (Uecker Seat in Milwaukee, Skyline in Atlanta) because I wanted the actual ticket. This is the main reason I don't like StubHub as well. They used to send you the tickets (I remember as late as 2009 I recieved them from the seller.) They should give you the option to get the tickets after the game is played, I know the digital delivery and verification is to prevent counterfeits, but there are plenty of people who want the ticket itself, and they do still allow physical delivery for other sports. You can get them reprinted at many parks, but some do charge for it. I know I exchanged my seats for a game at Wrigley and they reprinted the tickets for free (I originally had a tickets.com bland one from the Cubs site, and got a nice one with the wrigley theme on it) but Miller Park tried charging me $5 for a reprint, which is why I bought the Uecker seat for a buck.

Comment by Bob D (MLB 30/48 total 442) on April 22, 2013 at 3:54pm: Tim
if 2 people had showed up with valid tickets, the person with the stub hub ticket calls the 800 number that stub hub provides and presumably the seller has to deal with stubhub.
I too was at the Met game yesterday and bought tickets the "old school way" and the way I buy at most minor league and college parks. Walked up to the window and bought them.
To me espocially at an April game in a half empty stadium if a scalper wants my business he has to ooffer a deal.
The one scalper we talked to yesterday not only failed to offer a deal, but he lied to us. He claimed he had tickets right behind 3rd base in section 141. That did not sound right to me(22nd visit to this park) and when one friend got the seating chart on his phone it was easily seen that it was a outfield section. At that point we would not have bought any tickets from him at any price and just proceed the rest of the way to the box office.

Comment by Brendan W. on April 22, 2013 at 1:25pm: I completely understand this, and I too was at Citi Field yesterday and the day before. One was with print at home tickets and another was for the holiday sale and had a Christmas design on it, and it has a lot of character.

I've decided to save my print-at-home stubs anyway, because sometimes I think that one day they may be obsolete and will show future generations how people started getting tickets in a different era. Though they have less character they are still worth keeping, Maybe they should let people print more "ticket-like" tickets so they have a little more character than, say a barcode and "mets.com".

Comment by Tim Choiniere on April 22, 2013 at 12:09pm: yesterday at Citi Field, we were in our seats and got talking with someonenext to us. He had bought his seat from Stubhub and when he handed his ticket to the usher, he looked at him funny and pulled out a ticket which had been redeemed for his seat that had been dropped on the ground and he had picked up. Presumably, he expected someone to show up without a ticket in their hand and look for that ticket. I am wondering what would have happened if 2 people showed up valid tickets to that seat. Who would be covered?

My other guess is that someone had the extra ticket in their hand and realized that they had sold that ticket and just threw it on the ground. Nobody ever showed up for that seat other than 1 from Stubhub

Comment by Thequesters Too on April 20, 2013 at 7:30pm: I wanted to add this piece of info after seeing all the MiLB and non-affiliated parks. There are some leagues, Appalachian being the prime example, where printed tickets are just not normal. Bristol White Sox give you a ticket that reads, "Keep this Stub." Very similar to those 50/50 games they play at a lot of the ballparks. Princeton is very similar so you won't get much there.

I know most of you are just like me and like to keep the ticket stubs, but there are some games you're just not going to be able to. I come up with an alternative if absolutely necessary.

Comment by Bob D (MLB 30/48 total 442) on April 18, 2013 at 4:32pm: I am torn on the stub issue. I have kept all mine, but I have so many in no particular order. I have them for minors and many colleges as well, but I keep track of all my MLB games on a spredsheet and have all my other ballparks on a spreadsheet. What I don't have filled in for non mlb parks is dates of games and number of games filled in so eventually I go thorugh ticket stubs and my scoring to fill those in.
As far as stubhub, I like the convience and ability to often get tickets below face. What I don't like is I think the spread between what the buyer is paying and the seller is getting is too high.