If you think October baseball is all about passion, where fans travel hundreds of miles to support their team in enemy territory, you know half of the story. And if you think the biggest obstacle is the price of a ticket or the long drive, again, you don’t know the other half of the story. So, what’s the story of the other half that we almost forget to discuss every time?
Those who don’t know yet, the New York Yankees will host the Boston Red Sox in a best-of-three AL Wild Card Series at Yankee Stadium, starting Tuesday, September 30. And this season, an unwelcome message appeared on Ticketmaster for anyone trying to buy tickets to the games in New York. The site alerted buyers that only fans from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania could buy tickets.
Lisa Gresci of Boston’s 7NEWS wrote, “Ticketmaster says sometimes geographic restrictions are put in place to give local fans the best chance to attend the game, and this decision to limit ticket purchasing to select states was made by the Yankees.” And this move has effectively stopped fans from buying tickets from other regions. One Red Sox fan told Boston’s 7NEWS, “Born and raised Red Sox fan, I want to go, so that’s horrible, that’s ridiculous!”
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Once the Wild Card Series closes, the winner will earn a trip north of the border and face the Toronto Blue Jays, who also finished with the same record as the Yankees but won the AL East on a tiebreaker. As the top seed, the Blue Jays get a bye and will host Games 1 and 2 of the AL Division Series. Games 3 and 4 would then return to either Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park. In that case, if the Jays play their away games in New York, the policy will block their fans from purchasing tickets as well.
A Yankees representative said to CBC News that the policy is “to fight ticket scalping.” But this excuse doesn’t hold much water, as the team is simply trying to keep their loud supporters at the stadium. In direct contrast, the Red Sox organization has made it clear they will not retaliate, as a team representative said to CBC, “We do not limit purchase eligibility at Fenway Park.”
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Now, this policy will force Red Sox and Blue Jays fans to find a friend in the “approved zone” to buy tickets for themselves or pay inflated prices on secondary resale sites. But is this a new low for the rivalry in baseball?
A common tactic across sports
As mentioned, the Boston Red Sox have a completely open policy. They allow anyone from any location to buy tickets to their home games.
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However, this is not the first time the Pinstripes have used this policy. They employed the same strategy against Cleveland Guardians fans during the 2022 ALDS. Even Canadian sports fans have also faced this before, in 2023, when the NHL’s Florida Panthers restricted sales to U.S. residents for 24 hours to limit the massive fanbase of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This strategy is actually quite common across Major League Baseball, as there are several reports about the San Diego Padres and the Philadelphia Phillies that have used similar restrictions.
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And the practice of “geofencing” tickets is widespread across all major American sports, as the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks famously blocked California residents from buying tickets for a championship game against the 49ers. In the NHL, the Nashville Predators ran a “Keep the Red Out” campaign against the Detroit Red Wings fans. And in the NBA, teams like the Detroit Pistons have restricted sales to counter the fans of the New York Knicks.
But no matter the times certain tactics are used, it never fails to enrage a certain fan base.