Season Ticket Holders Selling Game Tickets To Opponent Fans For Profit

HogtownSabresfan

Registered User
Jan 13, 2010
6,624
1,697
I'm sympathetic in the regular season. Come playoff time, there ought to be a law

If you actually put some money, sure you can have a say come playoff time. The sentiment from some, just makes me laugh. Last year, I got $6 for so many games I paid $53 for -- I think I'd need two years of selling playoffs to make up for losses.

They had like 16,000 for Montreal last week and the team is actually half-decent. I get it, wait until they are in the semi-finals and then demand tickets.
 

HogtownSabresfan

Registered User
Jan 13, 2010
6,624
1,697
If you want to out-bid the Leaf fans, go for it.

I live in Toronto and made the trip down with some work buddies and it was disheartening to get booed in your own barn. Of course the Sabres won, so the drive back to the GTA was enjoyable. If I were a STH, I'd sell those games too.

Thank you. I live in Toronto and have STH. Great seats. Send me a PM, if you have any interest in some.
 

beerme1

Registered User
Jun 27, 2011
941
475
To the OP ValJames if you think it's bad here take a look at Tampa.
I went to a Sabres game there and sat next to STH there. I told him it was like a Leaf game at home for us as Sabre fans outnumbered Lightning fans the guy said no, you don't understand. It's like this for every game here because of snowbirds. I think he had a great point. I sure wouldn't want that experience for every game but for a few it's fine.
And ya, good luck telling people they cant sell to the highest bidder lol. Some teams do that kind of thing for playoff tix I believe. I think Pittsburgh only sells to people with local zip codes.
 

joshjull

Registered User
Aug 2, 2005
78,467
39,918
Hamburg,NY
I do believe you’ll see it improve as the team does.
You would think this would be an obvious thing but.....


I can also guarantee the majority of the Habs fans that bought tickets bought them before the season even started. When most on here thought we would suck and were having a hard time getting up for the season. But us STH are, I guess, supposed to lose out on possible money to help offset tickets costs so the optics are better for a few fans watching on TV. Folks who spend zero on tickets.

After wasting thousands on incredibly crappy hockey the last 5 years to keep my STH for when things turned around. I think I and other ST holders have earned the right to sell a few games. I don’t expect pity but I also don’t expect nonsense like this thread. We couldn’t give tickets away some nights the last several years and thats not even hyperbole.

Sorry but this topic pisses me off
 

Baccus

Garage League filled with Mickey Mouse teams
Feb 18, 2014
1,453
953
As a former season ticket holder, I still like to complain that there's simply too many home games, and back when I had them, you definitely just had to eat the ticket cost if you couldn't give them away. Nothing more exciting then calling people trying to give away tickets mid-week and getting turned down repeatedly.

I'd imagine most season ticket holders welcome a little financial relief, especially if you've been paying through all the 'suffering'.
 

HogtownSabresfan

Registered User
Jan 13, 2010
6,624
1,697
You would think this would be an obvious thing but.....


I can also guarantee the majority of the Habs fans that bought tickets bought them before the season even started. When most on here thought we would suck and were having a hard time getting up for the season. But us STH are, I guess, supposed to lose out on possible money to help offset tickets costs so the optics are better for a few fans watching on TV. Folks who spend zero on tickets.

After wasting thousands on incredibly crappy hockey the last 5 years to keep my STH for when things turned around. I think I and other ST holders have earned the right to sell a few games. I don’t expect pity but I also don’t expect nonsense like this thread. We couldn’t give tickets away some nights the last several years and thats not even hyperbole.

Sorry but this topic pisses me off

Well said, my friend.
 

enthusiast

cybersabre his prophet
Oct 20, 2009
18,572
5,820
You're clearly entitled to do whatever you want with what you paid for. If money's the primary concern here, though, I might advise buying tickets for select games rather than taking the risk of losing out on games you don't want to go to.
 
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Dirty Dog

Wooftastic
Sponsor
Jul 11, 2013
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The doghouse
You would think this would be an obvious thing but.....


I can also guarantee the majority of the Habs fans that bought tickets bought them before the season even started. When most on here thought we would suck and were having a hard time getting up for the season. But us STH are, I guess, supposed to lose out on possible money to help offset tickets costs so the optics are better for a few fans watching on TV. Folks who spend zero on tickets.

After wasting thousands on incredibly crappy hockey the last 5 years to keep my STH for when things turned around. I think I and other ST holders have earned the right to sell a few games. I don’t expect pity but I also don’t expect nonsense like this thread. We couldn’t give tickets away some nights the last several years and thats not even hyperbole.

Sorry but this topic pisses me off

But I sincerely don’t understand this either. If it’s a waste of thousands and you hate being the middle man, why pay for season tickets? Is it cheaper in the long run than picking out 10 or so games a year to buy?

I live out of market and buy games throughout the year for the teams here, and I can’t imagine buying season tickets is cheaper? Other perks?
 
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SatanwasaSlovak

Registered User
Jan 18, 2013
1,449
128
Malmö, Skåne
Aren't there regular tickets to get a hold of? Seems weird to me, if it's so full or maybe so many season-tickets in the arena fans must buy off of them instead of just a regular ticket maybe it's time to extend the arena a bit?
 

pf8363

Registered User
Feb 17, 2015
109
38
Aren't there regular tickets to get a hold of? Seems weird to me, if it's so full or maybe so many season-tickets in the arena fans must buy off of them instead of just a regular ticket maybe it's time to extend the arena a bit?
Yes, there are plenty of available tickets. There are 1,000-2,000 empty, unsold seats at every game. The problem is that the tickets on the resale market are cheaper than the box office, so everyone that wants to go to the game chooses that route. This also refutes the OP's belief that STH are selling tickets for profit. Nobody is doing that. You can get Sabres tickets on Stubhub for under $10. People selling these tickets are simply trying to save some of their losses for the games that they cannot go to or do not want to go to.
 

JLewyB

Registered User
May 6, 2013
3,893
1,623
Pegulaville
This maybe a dumb question, but how can you tell if you’re selling your tickets to an opposing fan? Are we upset that they’re selling them in the first place?
 
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old kummelweck

Registered User
Nov 10, 2003
25,083
5,217
Here's some economics for ya... when the team stinks, in order for people to make their season ticket purchase affordable, they sell off tickets according to what is in demand. No one in town is going to pay face value to watch the sabres lose, let alone lose to the leafs, who will pay a premium. As excitement grows around the team getting better, local demand for tickets will go up, and season ticket holders will be more interested in hanging on to their premium tickets if they can make the total buy affordable by breaking even on the non leaf/habs games.

There will always be a premium on the leafs tickets, and if both teams are good and the games are battles, there will always be people who are tempted to sell over face.
 

sabresfan129103

1-4-6-14
Apr 10, 2006
22,452
2,312
Amherst, NY
I have a buddy with season tickets. Luckily for me he takes me to a handful of games. He sells off his Leafs, Edmonton, Pittsburgh games and maybe a few others. He doen't break even, but it's close, so season tickets are basically free. I can't say I blame him, but it does suck giving the Leafs 2 extra home games.
 

HogtownSabresfan

Registered User
Jan 13, 2010
6,624
1,697
I have a buddy with season tickets. Luckily for me he takes me to a handful of games. He sells off his Leafs, Edmonton, Pittsburgh games and maybe a few others. He doen't break even, but it's close, so season tickets are basically free. I can't say I blame him, but it does suck giving the Leafs 2 extra home games.

This is not possible. The hottest games on sked are Toronto, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Edmonton. That's eight games. I pay US$53 a ticket for row 1. That's $2,175. The Leafs are the best of the bunch and double the season average price is unlikely (especially if you are selling on stubhub with commission.) There are maybe four or five others around Christmas that are good too. Maybe you average $90 for all those. Even so, that's $1080 for 12 games. There are another 15 games that I'm lucky to average $20/game for so another $300. Let's say I can sell five more at cost to friends doing me a favour for $265. So $1080 plus $300 plus $265 for 12+15+5=32 games. So $1645 for 32 games= $51/game. I'm left paying about $535 for nine games or like $60.

Maybe your buddy is selling his seats to Leafs for triple season ticket price but you can't get that from anybody who knows the market. Go on stubhub or Kijiji or Craiglist.

THERE HAS BEEN NO WAY TO MAKE A PROFIT ON SABRES TICKETS THE LAST FIVE YEARS. Repeat that. I don't care what Mike Harrington at the News says. He hasn't done the math. There is no way your buddy can sell the top seats and get season tickets for free. The BEST you can hope for is sell the top games and come close to breaking even on the games you to go to.

Ask any season ticket (willing to tell you the truth) and they'll admit this. If they don't, I want to see an audit of how they "made" money because it won't hold up.

Tonight's game vs Calgary? 15,000. A friend took mine at cost. I wonder what was real cost. I'm going Saturday. I see row 2 in my section going for US$40 -- a weekend game.

You want to tell season ticket holders how to sell their tickets, I'm out. So will thousands of others and your team will be in Hamilton or somewhere else.
 
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missingmika

Registered User
Dec 9, 2006
4,513
1,795
This is not possible. The hottest games on sked are Toronto, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Edmonton. That's eight games. I pay US$53 a ticket for row 1. That's $2,175. The Leafs are the best of the bunch and double the season average price is unlikely (especially if you are selling on stubhub with commission.) There are maybe four or five others around Christmas that are good too. Maybe you average $90 for all those. Even so, that's $1080 for 12 games. There are another 15 games that I'm lucky to average $20/game for so another $300. Let's say I can sell five more at cost to friends doing me a favour for $265. So $1080 plus $300 plus $265 for 12+15+5=32 games. So $1645 for 32 games= $51/game. I'm left paying about $535 for nine games or like $60.

Maybe your buddy is selling his seats to Leafs for triple season ticket price but you can't get that from anybody who knows the market. Go on stubhub or Kijiji or Craiglist.

THERE HAS BEEN NO WAY TO MAKE A PROFIT ON SABRES TICKETS THE LAST FIVE YEARS. Repeat that. I don't care what Mike Harrington at the News says. He hasn't done the math. There is no way your buddy can sell the top seats and get season tickets for free. The BEST you can hope for is sell the top games and come close to breaking even on the games you to go to.

Ask any season ticket (willing to tell you the truth) and they'll admit this. If they don't, I want to see an audit of how they "made" money because it won't hold up.

Tonight's game vs Calgary? 15,000. A friend took mine at cost. I wonder what was real cost. I'm going Saturday. I see row 2 in my section going for US$40 -- a weekend game.

You want to tell season ticket holders how to sell their tickets, I'm out. So will thousands of others and your team will be in Hamilton or somewhere else.

With the effort youre doing on the math with this business plan, hopefully you're claiming your losses on Schedule C!

Then again, if you're getting season tickets to make profits, hopefully you are treating it as a trade or business and subjecting it to SE tax.
 

Djp

Registered User
Jul 28, 2012
23,825
5,639
Alexandria, VA
I definitely get annoyed seeing all those red jerseys in our lower bowl all the time, but it's not like the Montreal games or the Toronto games are the only ones that draw lots of opposing fans. See it all the time for Chicago games and Detroit games as well...as the team gets better those tickets will be harder for opposing fans to snap up easily...there will be more demand from Buffalo fans and that will slowly but surely squeeze the villains out.

It’s more complex...

Many of these people likely grew up in buffalo, moved out, got married and had kids then come back fir Sabres games where say the dad is a Sabres fans first but visiting team 2nd but kids are visiting team fans.

My brother and his wife are from buffalo. They live in Nashville and have half season season tix. My brother wasn’t much a hockey fan as a kid. His wife was due hard Sabres fan, both kids are press fans.

Nashville restricts ticket sales for division games based on residence. I think this applies to licensed resales.

Have you noticed buffalo road fans ? Some places it 30% or higher.
 

cardiffgiant

Continue without supporting us
Sep 28, 2005
2,540
305
It's not STH's fault that you don't like to share an arena with Canadian fans :naughty:
 

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