By Dan Groob, special to NYYSI

With the Yankees off to an 19-13 start despite a combined 32 All-Star appearances among four players on the disabled list who have yet to play a game, excitement for this year’s team abounds in the Bronx.

According to TiqIQ, New York Yankees tickets for home games at Yankee Stadium this season currently carry an average price of $110 dollars, the highest such figure in the past three seasons. This year’s average ticket price reflects a 22% increase over last year’s average of $90 dollars, and a 29% increase of the 2011 average of $85 dollars.

Given the heightened demand for Yankees tickets this season, it is important to be aware of all the ticket buying options that exist for fans. Nobody likes to pay top dollar for anything, and with various ticket resellers aggregated, fans have access to a wealth of information so that they can purchase Yankees tickets at the lowest possible prices with maximum security.

One such option is access to tickets off the Yankees Ticket Exchange. Tickets purchased off the exchange are validated by Ticketmaster’s exclusive barcode verification technology, which cancels the original ticket’s barcode and issues a new, unique ticket, with the purchaser’s name on it. Tickets purchased via this method will be delivered electronically, and carry a money back guarantee on every purchase.

TiqIQ also offers tickets from their proprietary Seller Direct marketplace. On Seller Direct, local fans or brokers post their tickets for direct resale. Tickets are available for local pickup, and transactions consummated on seller direct carry no fees on either side. Purchasers are also able to “make an offer” on tickets, and are capable of contacting sellers directly to negotiate terms of purchase and pickup.

Seller Direct 

• Buy directly from fans or brokers
• Local pickup
• No Fees
• Make an offer
• Contact seller directly

EBay listings are another source available the consumer’s benefit. With EBay listings, buyers are shown both Auction and Buy it Now ticket listings and how their pricing fits into the marketplace.

EBay 

• Auction
• Buy It Now

Another unique buying option is ScoreBIG, who operates in a similar fashion to Priceline.com and allows fans to name their price. Ticket buyers using ScoreBIG can save up to 60% on tickets if their offer is accepted, and experience no waiting time to find out if their offer has been accepted, as acceptance and rejection are instantaneous. Upon acceptance of an offer, the purchase is completed and the tickets are yours.

ScoreBIG

• Name your price and save up to 60% on tickets with ScoreBIG
• No waiting time to find out if your offer has been accepted. 
• 100% guaranteed tickets

In addition to Yankees Ticket Exchange, Seller Direct, eBay, and ScoreBIG, TiqIQ also pulls from many other secondary market ticket sites, including but not limited to Ticketsnow, Razorgator, FanExchange, and TicketNetwork.

With more ticket buying options than ever before, the ticket buying landscape is consistently evolving and can become difficult to navigate. However, with listings from multiple players in the marketplace and making price information wholly transparent, the consumer stands to benefit significantly. 

September 17, 2011

Dear anyone who still subscribes to this blog via RSS, or stumbles upon this URL in any other way,  

You've probably already noticed this, but this site hasn't been very active for the past year or so. There are various reasons - different life priorities, Twitter serving as an outlet for my Yankees ramblings, frustration with the way the Yankees organization treats their fans, etc. Regardless of the reasons, I often feel a sense of guilt over my abandonement of NYYSI. For a while there, we had a pretty good community going and we covered an important Yankees niche that wasn't fully covered in the Yankees blogosphere - the Yankee Stadium experience and fan advocacy.  

Because of that, I don't ever want to shut the blog down. I keep an active Twitter handle going @StadiumInsider, I closely follow the Yankees, and I live 12 minutes from the stadium. This blog was started as an outlet for my long-form Yankees-related ramblings when the mood struck, and I'd like to keep the channel open. Hopefully the fine folks at Bloguin can deal with a somewhat dormant blog on their network, knowing that the SEO from the various Yankees tips will keep some traffic flowing in and serving the advertisers.  Otherwise, I'll do my best to carve out some time to port the blog over to a self-hosted solution. 

Since many people used this blog to keep up to date with the latest Yankee Stadium happenings, I'd like to point you to the place that served as inspiration for many of the stories that were developed and distributed here on NYYSI - The NYYFans "Yankees: Out Of Play" forum.  I'd never recommend using NYY Fans as a place to discuss baseball-related topics, but for the Yankee Stadium experience, you'll find the most dedicated and experienced Yankee Stadium Insiders around. Sometimes, I wish I could hand over the NYYSI keys to some of the fine contributors over there and watch this blog flourish. Unfortunately, I don't have the infrastructure or value proposition to offer those hardcore fans, so their excellent Yankee Stadium and season ticketholder experience posts hide within message board posts. The best I can do is direct you to that forum and hope you find the information that you need. Whether you're a Yankees beat writer, a Yankee blogger, someone who frequents partycasino.com, or a Yankee fan of any type, you should carve a bit of time out of your day to peruse the NYY Fans "Yankees Out Of Play" forum for fan-focused Yankees story ideas.

Around this time of year, I'd typically be hard at work, breaking down the Yankees postseason ticket pre-sale dates, postseason ticket arrival dates, etc. This year, as a non-season ticket holder, I'm waiting until the secondary market is flooded with people looking to make a profit on selling their postseason tickets, so I can jump in and get a decent deal without ever having to deal with the emotional rollercoaster of dealing with the Yankees ticket office.  When that happens, I'll be sure to get my 2011 Yankees postseason tickets from my fine partners over at TiqIQ. 

If you'd like to stay in touch with me in any way, I'd recommend checking out the Ross Sheingold page on Google+. You'll find links to my far-reaching digital presence there, along with various ways to engage me in conversation. I work as a Brand Channel Manager at Big Fuel Communications - the first "pure-play" social media agency, and we're growing fast. If you're looking for a job in social media, Click here to apply. 

Thanks to everyone who has visited NYY Stadium Insider in the past, and I hope to stay in touch with you in the future. 

Sincerely, 

Ross Sheingold

Creator, Editor, Writer, NYY Stadium Insider 

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Here's a quick hit regarding the Yankees season ticket upgrade process. The ticket office has been promising calls for the past month, but they are finally picking up the phone and letting people know where they stand.

As always, they are first trying to pawn off "once in a lifetime" seats between the bases on the field level - $375 seats that no regular person can afford. From reports on message boards, it appears that the Yankees are making calls in seniority order, and they're already up to 1999.

Unfortunately, ticket holders with recent seniority shouldn't get their hopes up for a call in the next couple of days.  The majority of Yankees season ticket holders jumped on board in the early 00's when it became nearly impossible to score playoff tickets. 

So here we sit, just waiting to hear if we'll have a chance to upgrade our crappy seats in Grandstand section 428.  Our hope is to move our seats a little closer to home plate, but remain on the half-season plan.  We also might be willing to upgrade to a full season in the bleachers, but we have a feeling a lot of other people have the same idea.

Season ticket holders - what is your plan for upgrading?  Are you happy with your current seats? Are you willing to cancel your season tickets if the Yankees sign Randy Winn don't upgrade your seats? Let us know in the comments!

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After a well-timed trip to the DL, Derek Jeter is now on pace to record his historic 3000th hit at Yankee Stadium during this weekend's four game home stand against the rival Tampa Bay Rays. Below is some interesting ticket price data, courtesy of our friends at TiqIQ: 

Thursday, July 7th

• June 29th Avg. Price-$103
• July 5th Avg. Price-$144
• Get in Price-$51
• % change- +39.8%

Friday, July 8th

• June 29th-$96
• July 5th- $153
• Get in Price-$49
• % change- +59.4%

Saturday, July 9th

• June 29th-$117
• July 5th-$188
• Get in Price-$34
• % change- +60.7%

Sunday, July 10th

• June 29th-$112
• July 5th-$170
• Get in Price-$27
• % change- +51.8%

As you can see, fans are betting that Jeter will get the historic hit at the stadium on Thursday (based on the "get in" price).  Of course, prices will flucuate greatly with every hit as fans place their bets on which game he will hit the historic milestone. Every one of these game is above the Yankees average ticket price this season which is $92.37.  As he gets closer TiqIQ predicts that prices will continue to rise as there will be a major premium to pay to see the Captain get 3,000.

As always, you can click through to our Derek Jeter countdown to 3,000 page for convenient ticket purchasing links and the projected 3,000th hit date. 

 

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If you've been following our little slice of the interwebs here at NYYSI (and it isn't too difficult, since we only post once a month), you know that we ditched our season tickets heading into 2011. Our original plan was to take advantage of the secondary ticket market, score cheap tickets and go to even MORE games than we did in previous years. To be completely honest, that hasn't happened.  The secondary market has TANKED (just as we predicted) and the deals have been there (just folllow us @StadiumInsider to hear all about that), but more often than not, other life events have taken priority over heading up to the Bronx.  Tonight, in the midst of a 10 game home stand, we ended up with a free ticket to the game - only the second game we've attended all season. (Booooooo... Hisssssss... We know - we suck).   

Of course, once we entered the gates of Yankee Stadium, our "Stadium Insider" instincts took over. Over at the NYYSI Tumblr Page* you'll find some of our top tweets from the game, curated with commentary for your reading pleasure.  If you make the extra click, you'll read our take on the infamous "no e-reader/iPad policy" at Yankee Stadium and get some inside information on what makes the "facist" security guards (Jay Jaffe's words, not ours) tick.  You'll find links to photos of makeshift boundary lines preventing fans from standing too close to the coveted (and empty) Cafe Seating on the field level concourse, of Harlan Chamberlain watching the action from the wheelchair seats in section(while his son, Joba was en route to Florida for elbow surgery), of Chuck Knoblauch's signed ball in the Yankee museum (Chuck is on Twitter @ChuckKnob4Real - he's actually an engaging presence there, give him a follow) and of shaved ice being sold at an "Asian Food" concession stand (an odd combination).  All of this while weaving in our riffs on the game at hand.  This seems like a fun way to chronicle our trips to the big house in the Bronx - hopefully you'll feel the same way! Check it out, over on Tumblr. 

* We're still trying to figure out a good use for our Tumblr page.  For now, we'll use it to curate tweets. Deal with it.

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Well, it isn't going to happen on May 14, 2011 as our very own Nick2Slick predicted in March 2008, but Derek Jeter is likely to get his 3,000th career hit some time this month.  In what has become more of a slog to 3,000 than most Yankees fans were hoping for, Jeter has been smacking infield singles left and right lately and is poised to make a run at the milestone during the upcoming 10 game home stand. Our friends over at TiqIQ have prepared a fancy landing page to help us track the magic date, which you can view by clicking the below image (please note, this is a STATIC image as of June 1. For updates, scroll to the bottom of this post): 

Snarkiness aside, this is an exciting moment in Yankees history, and surely one that people will pay top dollar to witness in person.  It is hard to believe that a storied franchise like the New York Yankees has yet to have a player reach 3,000 hits in pinstripes, let alone get all 3,000 with the team.  Some will argue that 3,000 hits is an arbitrary number and isn't anything to go crazy over.  While we see their point, we also know that sports is largely about emotion and witnessing something that only 27 other players have done in MLB history is special.  Especially when it is the face of the franchise for the past 15 years, Derek Jeter. 

For the record, TiqIQ currently projects that the milestone will occur on June 16 - a Thursday matinee against the Rangers before the Yankees head off to Chicago for a showdown with the Cubs at Wrigley Field in Chicago.  TiqIQ's search lists over 10,000 tickets for sale for the projected milestone date, with a "get in the door" price of $13 for Grandstand Outfield tickets.  Our recommendation is to hedge your bets now and buy some tickets for the end of the home stand.  Sure, you stand to lose some money if Jeter doesn't reach the milestone, but you'll still have Yankees tickets! If you wait until it is more of a "sure thing," you'll definitely pay a lot more than $13 to witness history.  Periodic updates after the jump....

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Are you one of the 17,686 non-premium Yankees season ticket account holders?  If so, you should know that approximately 1,588 of your fellow season ticket holders recently received an excel spreadsheet containing personal information such as your name, address phone number, email address, plan type, seat location, number of seats, account representative and account number. In an email previewing the Yankees current home stand, a ticket representative inadvertently attached the spreadsheet and sent it to the 1,588 accounts that he manages.  The account representative quickly "recalled" the email (we can only imagine the scene being something like this year's Bridgestone Super Bowl Commercial), but since that functionality only works within Microsoft Office, the damage had already been done. 

At first glance, this might not seem like a huge story - credit card information wasn't included and "only" 1,588 people received the email.  However,  Epsilon's recent security breach received national media attention and people are always concerned about their personal information getting into the wrong hands.  Beyond the typical concerns of personal security and privacy, the 17,686 account holders on that list now face the possibility of solicitation requests, fraudulent phone calls and other nastiness that can result when a list of potential customers is leaked. 

We have yet to receive a copy of the email or spreadsheet, but multiple sources have confirmed the above information.  Aside from the personal account holder information that was shared, some interesting data about Yankees season ticket sales can be mined from the spreadsheet.  The list doesn't contain information about any of the Yankees' "premium" seat offerings such as The Legends Suite, Delta Suite, Jim Beam Suite, etc, but it does list every single account from full season to the smallest partial plan in all other areas of the stadium.

Some interesting nuggets of information from "the list" courtesy of a season ticketholder who was affected by this breach (all data as of 4/25/11):

• The Yankees' total non-premium ticket licensee ticket revenue for far in 2011 is approximately $131,978,910 (plus or minus 1% accuracy due to possible discounting)
• There are 17,686 non-premium subscriber accounts
• There are 26,904 full season equivalents
• There are 21,468 ticket plans
• There are 59,498 ticket plan seats
• 2,179,237 total subscriber tickets sold

It looks like Lonn Trost may have been exaggerating a bit when he said that the Yankees have between 36,000 and 37,000 season ticket holders in a recent interview with Ian Begley of ESPN New York, but considering these numbers don't even include premium seating, the Yankees are doing pretty well on the ticket revenue front. Without context a lot of the above numbers don't carry much meaning, but one would assume that most teams in baseball would love to have the "attendance problems" that the Yankees currently have. The challenge is retaining those season ticket holders, especially when the secondary ticket market is so ripe for the picking, and when security snafus like this occur. 

We're currently waiting for word back from the Yankees with a comment on this story and will update this story with their response. In the meantime, feel free to surf on over to the NYYFans.com message board where people who are affected are discussing the situation. 

UPDATE: In a press release sent out on Monday night,  the team acknowledged this data breach stating, "The Yankees deeply regret this incident and any inconvenience that it might cause." The release went on to mention that no financial data was included in the breach.  Later in the evening, all season ticket holders received the following letter: 

Dear Yankees Season Ticket Licensee,

We are writing to inform you about an accidental electronic distribution of information that you have previously supplied to the New York Yankees.

Monday evening, April 25, 2011 an employee of the Yankees sent an e-mail to several hundred Yankees Season Ticket Licensees. The e-mail mistakenly attached an internal Yankees spreadsheet that listed the following information associated with your New York Yankees account:

· Your name, and the address, phone number(s), fax number, and e-mail address that you previously provided to the Yankees
· Your seat numbers, Yankees account number, Yankees account representative name, and the ticket package code associated with your account

NO OTHER INFORMATION WAS INCLUDED IN THE DOCUMENT THAT WAS ACCIDENTALLY ATTACHED TO THE APRIL 25TH E-MAIL. THE DOCUMENT DID NOT INCLUDE ANY BIRTH DATES, SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, CREDIT CARD DATA, BANKING DATA, OR ANY OTHER PERSONAL OR FINANCIAL INFORMATION.

Please note, immediately upon learning of the accidental attachment of the internal spreadsheet, remedial measures were undertaken so as to assure that a similar incident could not happen again.

The Yankees deeply regret this incident, and any inconvenience that it might cause.

In addition, both Deadspin and the AP reported on this story after we initially "broke" the news (it should be noted that this had been on the NYY Fans message board for two days before it ever made it elsewhere).

Now we await the continued fallout from this mess. How much do you think a broker would lay out to get their hands on this little treasure of a list?

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Sunday's attendance photo courtesy of Amanda Rykoff on Flickr

UPDATE (4/5/11): The Yankees set another attendance low during their series-opening victory over the Twins on Monday night. The announced crowd of 40,311 will probably only stand as the record low for one night as there are plenty of seats available for Tuesday's game on Ticketmaster.com. 

It's no secret that aside from the fanfare of opening day, Major League Baseball teams have trouble drawing fans through the gates for April baseball.  Look no further than this past Sunday's embarrassing attendance of 8,726 at Cleveland's Progressive Field for proof.  The weather is cold, the kids are in school and since many teams haven't yet adopted the logical concept of dynamic ticket pricing, the cost is the same as for more desirable summer games.  

With a large base of season ticket holders and a perennially contending team, the New York Yankees are immune to attendance debacles like the one seen in Cleveland. They aren't immune to disappointing attendance, however. The first weekend of the 2011 season featured back to back days of record low crowds at the new Yankee Stadium - 41,462 on Saturday and 40,574 on Sunday. 

All of the least attended games at the new Yankee Stadium have occurred during April or May.  The Yankees set the previous low attendance mark when 41,751 bought tickets to a game against the Orioles On May 3, 2010.  But this weekend's attendance "futility" could be classified as unexpected.  After an unusual Friday off (a logistical necessity in case Thursday's opening day was rained out), casual fans had their first chance to catch the 2011 Yankees live for a nationally televised FOX Saturday game against the Tigers.  The weather was a bit chilly, but with abundant sunshine and temperatures in the 50's, it was about as comfortable as can be expected at this time of year.  The simple thought of having to endure a baseball game called by Joe Buck and Tim McCarver should have been enough to send people in droves to the Bronx. 

Unfortunately, even the favorable weather conditions and weekend dates couldn't save the Yankees from early season attendance woes.  The raw numbers were still some of the most impressive in Major League Baseball, but whether in the stands or watching on TV, you could tell that there were a lot of empty seats.  Yankee ticket commercials have been airing during Knicks games on MSG and NCAA tournament games on TBS, season tickets are being hawked on NYC taxis and account reps are calling recently departed season ticket holders, begging for their business back. The shine has worn off of the new stadium and after a quiet offseason absent of a major player acquisition, the number of season ticket holders has clearly decreased.

We discussed it in a post back in January and Neil Best touched on the trend last week - it appears that more fans are ditching package-based season ticket licenses featuring static, per-game pricing.  Pricing on the secondary market is dynamic and fans aren't forced to attend early-season games in sub-optimal viewing conditions.

This week at Yankee Stadium is highlighted by four straight weekday games against a non-rival (the Minnesota Twins).  With Yankees tickets on the secondary market going for less than $1, we have to ask - how low will the paid attendance go?

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that New York Yankees single game tickets for the 2011 season go on sale to the public on Friday, March 11 (tomorrow).  What this typically means for most Yankees fans is an opportunity to snag reasonably priced (face value) tickets to premium games.  Unfortunately, early reports from this week's season ticket holder pre-sales are that queries for "cheap" seats on Ticketmaster have been coming up empty. The explanation for this dearth of tickets might not be as straightforward as sold out seats. 

While watching Wednesday night's Knicks vs. Grizzlies game on MSG Network, familiar sounds emanated from the television at Stadium Insider headquarters. It was Paul Olden (the voice of the New Yankee Stadium), accompanied by the familiar Yankees ticket promo music - a TV ad that typically airs on Yes Network or during Yankees games on My 9. This particular commercial was hawking smaller season ticket plans (11 games and lower).  It wasn't immediately clear which seats were available, but it won't be surprising if seats in the Grandstand (400's) and Terrace (300's) are readily available for those smaller, mostly weekday plans. 

So, when logging on to Ticketmaster.com for tomorrow's sale, don't be surprised if cheap seats aren't available - especially for premium games.  Those seats are likely being held back as the Yankees ticket office looks to package them with the toxic assets otherwise known as mid-week games. It makes perfect sense. Face value seats in reasonably priced locations (Grandstand and Terrace) can always be moved throughout the season.  Now is the time to group them with less desirable seats in small season ticket plans.

The advice from here is to hold tight and not be tricked into buying any of those plans.  The reasonable priced tickets will become available in due time.    no comments

As of today, January 10, 2011, we here at NYY Stadium Insider headquarters are no longer Yankees season ticket holders. There are no regrets, there is no remorse. The best way to describe the feeling is liberation. 

From 2005-2010 as season ticket holders, we were locked into attending (or selling) a specific number of games per season.  In April 2005, we signed up for a 46 game plan in the Tier Reserved at Yankee Stadium II (the old B Plan) and were rewarded with a great birds eye view from Section 1, Row M.  The main perk was guaranteed seats to every potential playoff game (and a bunch of "premium games" throughout the season), but it was also pretty awesome to call ourselves Yankees season ticket holders.  

After the disappointing 2008 season, we navigated our way through the new Yankee Stadium relocation process and nearly got bumped to a 20 game plan (we thoroughly documented this process during the New Stadium Insider days).  People who upgraded to full season received priority and it left us on the outside of the guaranteed playoff plans (full season and 41 game plans). We stood our ground, refusing to become de-facto ticket brokers and eventually were "rewarded" with a 41 game plan in Section 428, row 10. Many others weren't so lucky.   

2009 was a dream season for Yankees season ticket holders, despite all of the hype about unsold Legends Suites and obstructed views. The new stadium was a grand and exciting structure (we had plenty of issues with the "new house," but we also had a lot of fun exploring every nook and cranny). The team on the field was great - walkoff wins had pies flying around at a record pace and the team pretty much cruised to the 27th championship in franchise history, winning all but one of their home playoff games.  They clinched the ALCS and World Series in front of the home fans, A-Rod had "true Yankee" moment after "true Yankee" moment and times were good. 

By the beginning of 2010, the shine of the new stadium and the euphoria of the first Yankees championship since 2000 quickly wore off.  Our seats in section 428, row 10 offered and awful view of the playing field and they weren't going to get any better.  We dealt with it in 2009 because it was a new stadium and because we spent most of our time roaming around, watching the game from the excellent standing room only spots on the field level. But in the 2009 ALDS when Joe Mauer hit his controversial ground rule double that was incorrectly called foul, and when Mark Teixeira hit his game winning home run to left field, we were completely in the dark.  There are blind spots in the wings of the far-recessed upper deck at Yankee Stadium III and as the season wore on, we realized that we'd be better off watching the games at home. Back in October, we wrote a whole blog post about it. 

You won't find many people who enjoy the raucous atmosphere of a big game at a sports stadium more than we do.  For a long time, having season tickets made sense, as it ensured our attendance for those memorable games.  Then, in 2008, StubHub and MLB signed a deal that would forever change the way fans accessed tickets to baseball games.  With this deal, MLB season ticket holders could buy more tickets than they could afford and then easily list them on StubHub by entering the barcode numbers on their tickets.  They wouldn't even have to ship the tickets - everything was done electronically.  During 2008, fans still hadn't fully caught on, and StubHub (and the rest of the secondary ticket market) was still generally a seller's market.  In 2009, the new stadium guaranteed that most resellers would make a killing hawking their Yankees tickets, especially those with reasonably priced seats.  But in 2010, the market shifted in favor of the buyers.  Casual Yankees fans caught wind of how easy it was to sell their tickets on StubHub - something that brokers had known for years and savvy fans had caught on to early in 2008.  There were simply more tickets on StubHub than there were buyers, and it resulted in some ridiculously low secondary market ticket prices,  especially during a brutal stretch of August games that resulted in some of the lowest attendance numbers seen at the new Yankee Stadium.

But what spoke volumes was what happened when it came time for the playoffs. Unfortunately, work and other prior engagements caused us to miss all of the ALDS games and all but one of the ALCS games. Typically, we'd sell the tickets on the secondary market and make back two or three times the face value at the very least.  This year, it was a struggle to even get back face value for our crappy seats in section 428, row 10. Between the abundance of listings on the secondary market and the fact that everyone realized how crappy our seats in section 428 were, our once hot commodity had become a liability.  With great deals (in better seats) available on the secondary market and tools like FanSnap and SeatGeek to help find great deals, we started running out of ways to justify our season ticket investment. 

All of that said, our 41 game plan in the Grandstand Outfield at Yankee Stadium remains relatively inexpensive.  At $20 per seat, per game, the cost of half of a season could still be considered an impulse buy, and going into 2011, prices were set to remain the same.  Even though the resale value of playoff games had lowered, we still were guaranteed the opportunity to be there for every game and that was enough reason to consider remaining a season ticket holder.  And then, we received the letter that our 41 game plan would no longer be guaranteed tickets to every home game of the playoffs and our decision was made - we would no longer be season ticket holders. 

The way we see it, we'll be better off taking advantage of the secondary market for the games we want to attend, and it will allow us the flexibility to attend MORE games.  NYYSI headquarters is located on the Upper East Side, just 15 minutes away from Yankee Stadium on the 4 train, so we'll be able to attend games on a whim and at the last minute, probably for very cheap. For premium games and playoff games, we'll likely pay over face value, but it will probably be offset by all of the games we get to see for under face value during the regular season.  When considering the fact that we will no longer have to waste time and energy dealing with the uncaring Yankees ticket office, the decision became a no-brainer.

Of course, this decision may come back to haunt us. We're not going to sit here and pretend that we're the only people who have had this revelation over the past few years. In fact, in our internet travels, we've come across many fellow season ticket holders who recently made a similar decision to liberate themselves from the burden of Yankees season tickets. Because of this, the secondary ticket market could get hot again, leaving smoking hot deals on Yankees tickets few and far between.  But at this point, it is a risk we're willing to take and we've made peace with our decision. Today is the final day to pay our 2011 invoice and we won't be doing it. Our seats in Grandstand Outfield 428, row 10 will be thrown back into the pool to be someone else's burden. StubHub, here we come.

 
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