If you want to be part of the Whiteout at a Winnipeg Jets playoff game this month, but you aren’t a season ticket holder, the team would rather you steer clear of websites like StubHub and SeatGeek.
Despite not knowing who the Jets will be playing or when the games will happen, you can already find third-party sites selling tickets.
But Kevin Donnelly, Senior VP of Venues and Entertainment with True North, has a warning if that’s the path you wish to choose.
“I would not be exaggerating if I told you every single event we do, we have somebody that has bought a ticket from an unauthorized re-seller site and shows up, and the ticket is invalid,” Donnelly said.
“That is the biggest bone of contention we have with the resale market. There’s bad actors out there and they’re selling fraudulent tickets.”
The Toronto Blue Jays came under fire last week when people found out the team receives secret commissions from sales on StubHub, who has an official relationship with Major League Baseball.
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The NHL has no such agreement. Instead, clubs allow season ticket holders to sell their tickets through the Ticketmaster-run Seat Exchange.
“Lots of sports franchises have relationships with brokers. It allows you to put tickets on a discounted level out there without you taking heat for it,” Donnelly explained. “There are lots of examples of why sports teams who have too much inventory and not enough demand would want to use a discount service to get some tickets out there.”
Ticketmaster is no saint, either, having been sued for deceiving customers. The company has also faced criticism for not doing enough to thwart ticket-buying bots.
If you’re a season ticket holder using the Seat Exchange, you pay a commission fee to sell the tickets at no more than the walk-up price, which still nets a profit for the seller.
“It allows us to say this is a legitimate, guaranteed port where you can get a ticket. Any other site, you are not guaranteed it’s an actual, valid ticket,” Donnelly said. “I think the idea of knowing who’s selling your tickets and knowing who’s buying your tickets is something that we value a lot. We’d rather sell to our fans directly, know who’s buying, what their patterns are, how to treat them and learn what they expect, instead of having somebody else try to do that for us.”
General playoff tickets for the Jets will go on sale Tuesday, April 10 at 10 a.m., though just over 1,000 will be available to the public. Those hoping to get a seat can go through the team’s Seat Exchange site as well.
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