Chicago Cubs’ fans are no longer able to print tickets from home

A lot of news came out of the Cubs Convention this past weekend. One change is how Chicago Cubs fans will receive tickets purchased to 2017 games. It’s sure to upset some fans as well.

Chicago Cubs Senior VP of Sales and Marketing Colin Faulkner announced the elimination of print-at-home tickets during a panel session on Saturday. During the business operations session at the Cubs Convention, Faulkner said that the Cubs have noticed an increase in fraudulent tickets, especially during the playoffs.

“We certainly saw a lot of instances in the postseason where the value of our tickets became so tremendous that there’s incentive for people to commit fraud to capitalize on the value of tickets,” senior vice president of sales and marketing Colin Faulkner said. “We’re going to eliminate the print-at-home tickets. We think the Ballpark app is a great solution.”

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Hard physical copies of tickets will still be available to all fans throughout the season, but the Cubs are pushing for use of mobile tickets. The mobile tickets will be delivered via MLB’s Ballpark app.

Season ticket holders will continue to receive hard copies of tickets in the mail. They will now have the option of managing those tickets through the Ballpark app. Once single game tickets go sale, fans can receive hard copy tickets via mail or pick up at the Wrigley Field Will Call. Fans can opt for the mobile ticket instead by downloading the Ballpark app.

MLB Ballpark App

It’s no surprise that the Cubs are pushing for mobile tickets. With online sales and the use of smartphones continuing to grow, the Cubs are trying to stay ahead of the teams. Surprisingly, the Cubs are one of just a few teams to actually utilize the mobile ticket option. The Cubs are also the first to eliminate print-at-home tickets. The other MLB teams that utilize the app have eliminated hard copy tickets instead of print-at-home ones.

The app will be integrated with Ticketmaster and tickets.com. The goal is to have everything streamlined into one central app. So, even if you buy tickets on the secondary market (like StubHub), the mobile ticket will be still be downloaded to the Ballpark app. Fans must download and log into the Ballpark app in order to use this feature. You can also transfer tickets to others as well, as log as they have the app too.

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It makes a lot of sense for the Cubs to go this route. It prevents counterfeit tickets and allows the Cubs to gather more information about those purchasing tickets. Mobile tickets have already been popular in other entertainment industries (like movie theaters) so it makes sense to roll out on a bigger scale.

I know I will definitely be using the Ballpark app for my tickets. While it is nice to have a hard copy, knowing that the ticket is on my phone prevents me from losing the ticket as well.