StubHub files lawsuit against Ticketmaster and the Golden State Warriors

NEW YORK – StubHub is suing Ticketmaster and the Golden State Warriors, alleging it unfairly required fans looking to resell tickets to use Ticketmaster’s resale exchange.

The online ticket marketplace and division of San Jose, California-based eBay Inc. alleges in the lawsuit filed Sunday night that the organizations prevent fans from deciding how they want to resell tickets and artificially drive up ticket prices.

Specifically, StubHub said Ticketmaster and the Warriors cancelled fans’ regular-season and playoff-game tickets when those fans used StubHub and other exchanges to resell tickets. In other cases, the complaint says, Ticketmaster and the Warriors’ front office broke the law by threatening fans with cancellation to force them to use Ticketmaster’s resale exchange.

“While we do not comment specifically on pending legal matters, we wanted to provide our fans some of the important reasons for our policies,” the Warriors said in a statement.

“The Warriors are committed to providing fans with the opportunity to see our games in person through a safe and secure ticket buying experience. Dozens of fans are denied entry to Oracle Arena each game because they purchased counterfeit tickets. Warriors.com and NBATickets.com are the only sites where tickets are guaranteed to be authentic. Although some third party sites may offer a ‘money-back’ guarantee, none of them can verify ticket authenticity that would guarantee entry to our games.”

The Warriors added that more than 10,500 fans are waiting for the opportunity to purchase season tickets.

“However, each year a significant number of those tickets are purchased by ticket brokers with the sole intent to resell them at a markup. The Warriors recently decided not to renew 2015-16 season tickets held by some ticket brokers, so that we can instead sell those tickets directly to fans on our wait list,” the team said. “This approach reflects our commitment to giving our fans the game experience they deserve.”

Ticketmaster is a unit of Beverly Hills, California-based Live Nation Entertainment Inc. A representative for the company could not immediately be reached.