In comments to media last week, Mr. Trost COO of the New York Yankees indicated that New York Yankee fans that paid full price for a premium ticket likely could not bear to sit near another fan who bought their own ticket at a discount.
“The problem below market at a certain point is that if you buy a ticket in a very premium location and pay a substantial amount of money. It’s not that we don’t want that fan to sell it, but that fan is sitting there having paid a substantial amount of money for a ticket and [another] fan picks it up for a buck-and-a-half and sits there, and it’s frustrating to the purchaser of the full amount,” said Mr. Trost.
“And quite frankly,” Mr. Trost added, “the fan may be someone who has never sat in a premium location. So that’s a frustration to our existing fan base.”
“Yankee fans have always been the best in baseball. We root for our team harder than anyone, we live and die with every single loss. The idea that some of us would recoil in horror because the person sitting next to them paid less than face value for their seat is absurd, and represents the very definition of elitism,” said Borough President Diaz.
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. has issued a letter to Randy Levine, President of the New York Yankees, critical of the team’s new anti-fan policies on the resale of tickets. In addition, Borough President Diaz also chastised the organization for the elitist, out-of-touch comments made recently by team COO Lonn Trost, which implied that less affluent fans do not belong in more expensive seats as their mere presence might offend the more prosperous.
“I have been a Yankee fan my entire life. Without the everyday, working class fans who make up the vast majority of their fan base, the New York Yankees would not be the successful franchise they are today,” said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. “The Yankee organization should not be making it more difficult and more expensive for their fans, especially fans who might be visiting our great borough for the first time, to occasionally enjoy a ball game in The Bronx.”
Read the complete letter here: http://on.nyc.gov/1LaBcA0.
