New Ontario law capping resale prices frustrates season ticket holders

Ryan Van Horne has had season tickets for the Toronto Raptors for 12 years but for the first time, he’s considering ending his streak.

That’s because Ontario legislation that came into effect last month capped the price of resale tickets at face value, plus the cost of some taxes and service fees.

The move makes it harder for seat holders, like Van Horne and a pal he shares his subscription with, to offset their costs by selling tickets to games they can’t attend.

“I’ve told my friend I don’t know if I’ll continue with it,” said Van Horne, who pays his share of almost $5,000 a year for two aisle seats in the eighth row of Scotiabank Arena’s 300 level.

“Not that this was a for-profit thing, but the break-even makes absolutely no sense to me now.”

Van Horne’s dilemma offers a window into the complications fans and some of Canada’s most lucrative sporting franchises face as new legislation reshapes the playing field for ticket resales.

Up until recently, season seat holders have been able to off-load tickets for any price the market will pay. While some turned that flexibility into full-out businesses, profiting off their ability to snag seats to the hottest matches and then flip them for even more cash, many say they subscribed purely for their love of the game. They say they resell tickets only because of how demanding a team’s game schedule can be and how expensive seats have become.

“Whether it’s the time or money, or both, they can’t afford to go to all these games,” said Paul Beirne, a sports business consultant who has held senior positions at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and was once president of the Canadian Premier League.

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Baseball seasons, for example, now stretch beyond 160 games, so it’s understandable that the average person often can’t make it to the 80 or so hosted at home.

Others bought their season seats years ago, but the price has grown so steeply that the only way they can afford to continue is by selling some of the tickets.

Some tickets sell below face value, but anything over the original price helps chip away at resale service fees and covers some of the subscription.

The new cap will force season seat holders to let their tickets go for no more than face value or consider riskier, unprotected sales on social media platforms or outside venues.

Asked about the predicament, a spokesperson for Ontario Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery Stephen Crawford said in an email that the province is making it “easier and more affordable for families to attend concerts, cultural events and sporting events.”

Giulia Paikin also said the new legislation applies “equally” to all resale platforms. The province is running a public consultation on the policy until May 10.

Sho Kalache, a season ticket holder with the Toronto Tempo women’s basketball team, felt the brunt of the legislation almost immediately.

When a friend offered Kalache access to her box for a game and work commitments cropped up conflicting with others, she listed her seats for some matches. They were taken down days before the team’s inaugural game, when the platform she listed them on removed seats on an interim basis to bring their systems into compliance with the new legislation.

“I wasn’t trying to make money. I just wanted to break even on the ones that I can’t go to,” Kalache said.

She’s resorting to giving away tickets through her wife’s real estate business but isn’t pleased with that alternative because it’s time consuming and she can’t guarantee they’ll go to a fan.

“It’s a little frustrating because the ease of off-loading tickets is gone,” Kalache said.

Many leagues and platforms are still working out how to allow season seat holders to post tickets while complying with the legislation.

Raptors, Leafs and Toronto FC owner MLSE and the Toronto Blue Jays said last week that they are working with the government and will have an update soon.

Beirne called the legislation “a blunt force” that will “penalize normal behaviour.”

“They choose to charge more for some games and charge less for other games because that’s the nature. Some games are more attractive than others,” he said.

“But if you cap everything the same, you risk making season tickets less flexible, less attractive, and that ultimately hurts the teams and the fans.”

Van Horne, who not only renewed his Raptors seats but also bought a season of tickets to the Tempo before the legislation was mentioned by the government, worked out that his Raptors seats cost him about $100 per game.

Typically, he and his friend each laid claim to the games they wanted and then offered the remainder to friends and family to “recover my costs and a little more.”

Attending them all is unthinkable. He lives outside the city now and has family obligations.

“Unless people have a really good network, a group of half a dozen friends and they’re splitting this all … they might be asking themselves, is all this extra burden now worth it?” he said.