stubhub

StubHub, Washington Capitals Battle for Ticket-Reselling Market

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Last week we reported about a change in Monumental’s policy for season-ticket holders. Under this new policy, ticket holders would not be able to print out their tickets until 72 hours before the event. The team stated that the policy was changed for security reasons, though some fans felt that the Caps were trying to eliminate competition on the secondary market.

Ticket-reseller websites like StubHub have cutoff windows for the delivery of resold tickets. To resell, the original owner must provide the ticket usually no less than five days before the game. With a 72-hour-window instituted by the Capitals and Wizards, reselling on StubHub was effectively made impossible. The NHL’s partner reseller, TicketExchange, was still a viable option.

Since this story broke, StubHub has changed its rules to accommodate Monumental’s new restrictions on ticket printing.

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Caps Season Ticket Holders Upset by Change in Ticket Policy

UPDATED BELOW.

Scandalized by a late-breaking change in policy, Washington Capitals season ticket holders took to social media on Wednesday night.

The Capitals detailed their new policy at the bottom of an email to STHers:

PRINT-AT-HOME – 72 HOURS PRIOR TO EVENT

Effective starting with the 2014-15 season, tickets will only be available to print-at-home within 72 hours of the event. The time limit is an added security measure for our fans and customers as it helps to eliminate occurrences of counterfeited and duplicated PDFs. All other features of Account Manager, including Transfer and the ability to distribute tickets to friends/family/clients in advance, do remain available outside of 72 hours to the event.

The reason stated in the message is security– that the potential for counterfeit printed tickets endangers fans, players, and staff at the arena.

Another effect, as told to RMNB by season ticket holders, is the destruction of the secondary sales market.

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