Warning to Season Ticket Holders

[RiverDog]

They're not going to take your tickets mid-season. The way I understand it is they're going to monitor and review how many seats you sold and if its most if not the entire season, they'll reach out and let you state your case and then decide if you're eligible for renewal. That is a pretty rad courtesy they're not obligated to give. There are other teams that will just yank em' after the seasons over.

I understand that they won't take them mid-season. What I'm talking about is discriminating on who they are going to sell future tickets to.

Morally, I'm not objecting to their proposed action. The atmosphere inside the stadium isn't near what it used to be, and I'd love to see people sell their tickets only to Seahawk fans. I'm questioning the legality of it. If you buy a box of apples from me, what business is it of mine whether you use them to feed your family or re-sell them at a farmer's market for a 50% profit or if I give them away to the homeless?

 

[SweepSanFran]

Well I guess I will chime in with the rest of the non-season ticket holders. I try to go to games when I can with my sons and we love it. My only problem with this whole thing is if your a STH and you sell some tickets here and there because you cant or dont want to go to a game I understand. If your a company or just someone who wants to make a business out of selling tickets for profit, I am not ok with that. I remember it used to be illegal to scalp tickets and now its promoted with resale sites. I think you go back to not allowing scalping of tickets and the problem may go away (dont know that for sure). Its not enjoyable as a fan to see your home team with no HFA when we used to have a great advantage. I applaud what the organization is doing to try to facilitate an advantage again, I believe they are trying to address the on field product, and that should help. It would be great if this puts the business of reselling tickets solely for the purpose of profit and not attending any games out of business. Let the true fans enjoy their team.

 

[Nosferatu]

I understand that they won't take them mid-season. What I'm talking about is discriminating on who they are going to sell future tickets to.

Morally, I'm not objecting to their proposed action. The atmosphere inside the stadium isn't near what it used to be, and I'd love to see people sell their tickets only to Seahawk fans. I'm questioning the legality of it. If you buy a box of apples from me, what business is it of mine whether you use them to feed your family or re-sell them at a farmer's market for a 50% profit or if I give them away to the homeless?

As long as it is in the terms and conditions, it is completely legal to restrict reselling of tickets. You are entering into a contract with the team when purchasing season tickets (or really any ticket) with the organization selling the ticket. I don't think I ever read my contract when I had season tickets but it is completely legal to restrict.

 

[Jerhawk]

I understand that they won't take them mid-season. What I'm talking about is discriminating on who they are going to sell future tickets to.

Morally, I'm not objecting to their proposed action. The atmosphere inside the stadium isn't near what it used to be, and I'd love to see people sell their tickets only to Seahawk fans. I'm questioning the legality of it. If you buy a box of apples from me, what business is it of mine whether you use them to feed your family or re-sell them at a farmer's market for a 50% profit or if I give them away to the homeless?

I’d counter your point that when you bought the tickets, you agree to the home team’s terms and conditions for what you can do with said tickets.

Similar to buying a Blu Ray and there’s the no piracy warning. Or, now days with digital video games, where companies (Ubisoft) claim that even though you “bought” the game, you still don’t technically own it.

I see your point, just posting these counter points for conversation sake.

What I will add, to another prior .Net user who essentially bragged about scalping their tickets when they can, but justify it because they give to charity, etc, that honestly pisses me off and ruins it for everyone else. I don’t care how long you’ve been a fan, that’s the practice that the Seahawks are trying to crack down and and has caused all of this to occur. Those are the types of practices this message from the team was meant for, and I sincerely hope the team follows through and contacts these types of people. Would love to be a fly on the wall to hear what mental gymnastics the ticket purchaser uses to justify their behavior.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Bragging about scalping for a profit, weak sauce.

 

[SweepSanFran]

Bragging about scalping for a profit, weak sauce.

Not sure if that was directed to me, i might have gave the wrong impression with my comment, just wanted to clarify. I havent ever sold tickets, just purchased and not from a scalper or resale sight.

 

[Jerhawk]

Not sure if that was directed to me, i might have gave the wrong impression with my comment, just wanted to clarify. I havent ever sold tickets, just purchased and not from a scalper or resale sight.

It wasn’t you.

I shouldn’t speak for Soulfish but he was piggybacking off what I had said above that. And my comment was directed at a different user

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Not sure if that was directed to me, i might have gave the wrong impression with my comment, just wanted to clarify. I havent ever sold tickets, just purchased and not from a scalper or resale sight.

wasn't towards anyone, just my own opinion that it's lame. But people have a right to do what they want.

 

[flv2]

The real trick is to buy, or otherwise acquire, tickets from a Seaawks fan at a low price, then re-sell them to 49ers and Packers fans at a higher price.

 

[Jerhawk]

The real trick is to buy, or otherwise acquire, tickets from a Seaawks fan at a low price, then re-sell them to 49ers and Packers fans at a higher price.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Another thing that may or may not have been talked about is the fact that if someone gets in a fight in your seats, YOU are responsible and can lose your Season Tickets for good. Usually, it's for a game or two as a warning the first time.
I know this for a fact because about 10 years back, a guy got in a big fight a couple of rows behind us. He missed a couple games, then we saw him again. Got in another fight right away, we never saw him again. Guy that sits next to him confirmed they took his seats away.

 

[RiverDog]

Another thing that may or may not have been talked about is the fact that if someone gets in a fight in your seats, YOU are responsible and can lose your Season Tickets for good. Usually, it's for a game or two as a warning the first time.
I know this for a fact because about 10 years back, a guy got in a big fight a couple of rows behind us. He missed a couple games, then we saw him again. Got in another fight right away, we never saw him again. Guy that sits next to him confirmed they took his seats away.

That I can understand. Getting into a fight is against the law, or at least against stadium policy. But specifying who you can and can't re-sell your ticket(s) to?

I think back to what kind of rules we (the company I worked for) could and couldn't establish. There was a clause in our union contract that said that the company had the right to establish "reasonable" plant rules. Requiring employees to wear a hard hat is obviously reasonable. But telling them that they can't smile at one and other or wear a green shirt would fall under the category of unreasonable, that they couldn't rationalize it with a logical, that-makes-sense argument.

The same would hold true in the Seahawks rationalizing why they don't want you re-selling your tickets to Stub Hub. Imagine going in front of a judge and having to explain why you don't want Joe Jones re-selling his ticket. What harm is it doing to the Seahawks? That more Packers fans end up at the game? That would be damn tough to rationalize.

 

[Trackhawk]

As long as it is in the terms and conditions, it is completely legal to restrict reselling of tickets. You are entering into a contract with the team when purchasing season tickets (or really any ticket) with the organization selling the ticket. I don't think I ever read my contract when I had season tickets but it is completely legal to restrict.

In the past, it may have been legal to put post-sale restrictions on season tickets. It really isn't anymore. The biggest NFL ST resale case, that I recall, had to do with teams setting a floor price, below which tickets could not be resold. The NFL lost that case.

Essentially the courts are reinforcing the standard that, once sold, the NFL cannot restrict what the buyer does with the tickets, barring them being used for something illegal e.g. as a prize in a non-charity raffle. This is why you see them moving toward non-renewal of tickets. They can't do anything, after the tickets are sold. They can, however, refuse to sell more tickets, if they don't like how you have historically used them.

I'm sure that this will be challenged in court, in the near future. I'm sure it will come down to a question of what the terms and conditions, originally agreed to by the STH, stipulate.

I think a great compromise would be to have a verified Seahawks fans list that STH can sell their tickets to. They already have the Blue Pride list, why not make a specific resale site (linked through the STH website just like the NFL Ticket Exchange is now) that essentially guarantees that your tickets will go to Hawks fans? This allows STH a way to hold on to their legacy, while also filling the stadium with real fans.

As per above, the NFL cannot put these kind of restrictions in place, once the tickets are sold. Perhaps they could add restrictions to the terms and conditions for new STH, but that won't ever deal with the existing problem.

However, they could publish a list of recommended buyers.

 

[Trackhawk]

The state can make some restrictions, and the venue can restrict sales within a certain distance of the venue.

The state hasn't done the former, and likely this wouldn't work. The seller isn't located in-state, and would simply refuse to sell to Washington state residents, so the law wouldn't apply. It would have the opposite of the intended effect. It also might affect team sanctioned reselling through Ticketmaster.

 

[Slick]

Another thing that accelerated the home field advantage decline: remote work. 2021 is where you see a spike in visiting fans. Many people (like me) relocated outside of the Puget Sound area with new found ability to work remotely. We made the decision to cancel our season tickets for a plethora of reasons one of which is we coulda started selling them but didn't want peckerhead visiting fans in our seats.

Case in point: Every frost-tipped divorced dad in Chelan County gloats about having season tickets for which they make a killing selling off. They don't want to drive that 90k Chevy Tahoe over the pass in Nov-Dec-Jan.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Shoot, at this point, people who split their Season Tickets with others better tell their rep ahead of time. Avoid all that drama later.

 

[Rat]

Typical for the organization to blame the fans rather than themselves for pricing them out.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Well, I doubt the Hawks are any different than most teams. This isn't just some Seattle thing.

 

[Rat]

Those other teams are also wrong. Itd be nice if the Seahawks were better than that.

 

[DTiempo81]

As per above, the NFL cannot put these kind of restrictions in place, once the tickets are sold. Perhaps they could add restrictions to the terms and conditions for new STH, but that won't ever deal with the existing problem.

However, they could publish a list of recommended buyers.

I am not saying the team should put a restriction on selling on NFL Ticket Exchange, etc. As of now, there is a drop down menu when you want to sell/transfer your tickets with options to sell on the NFL Ticket Exchange, transfer, or donate. If they provided another option to sell to the Blue Pride list (or some other verified Seahawks fans) I think there are many people that would choose that option. Doesn't seem like it would too difficult to implement. The team already has the info for both sides of the exchange if they used the Blue Pride list, and they could also use it as another perk for Blue Pride wait-listers.