Chicago Cubs: Season ticket holder? Tread carefully when selling them

The Chicago Cubs can and will revoke season tickets when the resale rate climbs. Following the Cubs World Series run, a few have found this out firsthand.

As I sat in my home in Charlotte, N.C. watching the playoffs, I wondered how many of the people at the Chicago Cubs games were real fans. I know not all of them, I get that. But how many of them bought the tickets–at ridiculous prices–just to be part of it? There were likely a few. And now the Cubs, as they do each year, have cracked down and not renewed season tickets for a handful of fans.

The team’s season ticket holder agreement, like others in the league, states the team can revoke a person’s ticket for any reason at any time, a concept known as “revocable license.”

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Sound unjust? It’s not, really. The language is written into the agreement of the contract. The first thing the Cubs are trying to do is keep tickets in the hands of people who will attend the games. The second is to protect their investment. Very similar to how they handled the rooftop situation. Did you pay for the tickets? Fine. Recoup your money if you choose to sell them. But make MORE money?  Nope. The Cubs–and most team in the MLB–will have none of that.

The Cubs season ticket program renews the licenses each year. And in the wording of that agreement, the license agreement includes language advising fans their plan may be canceled if tickets have been purchased “for the purpose and intent of reselling the tickets on the secondary market.”

Not the only ones

The Indians handle theirs in a similar fashion, even revoking them on the eve of the World Series. Their agreement prohibits fans from reselling tickets to postseason games. Whether you like it or not, this is how it is and has been.

“Basically, it’s a take-it-or-leave-it situation,” said Lawrence Wolf Levin, a lawyer who represented Soderholm in the case. “That was my concept of the law then, as it is now. (The Cubs) pretty much are doing what they want to do, when they want to.” h/t Patrick M. O’Connell, Chicago Tribune

Perception is key to this matter. It’s easy to look at it and the Cubs as a moneymaker (and you’d be right), and think it’s unfair for them to do this. But scale it back to say your small business. And people are making money off your product. Then what would you think about it?

The Cubs have said that even with the World Series victory, there weren’t any more revoked this season than in the past. But with the Cubs making the World Series it seems to have made more headlines this season.

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I could have simply been a bit jaded that I couldn’t attend a playoff game because of the astronomical ticket prices. But in the end, I have no issues with the Cubs protecting their product. They aren’t the only ones, and it’s a bi-product of what professional sports have become.