So, did you go to see A-Rods last game on Friday? Thats a question asked this week by friends, family and just about anyone who knows me as a die-hard Yankees fan. The answer is kind of embarrassing, but the ribbing it usually leads to is actually pretty funny and somewhat indicative of my work at the moment.
Ive been a Yankee season ticket holder for the past few years, a dream of mine since my Dad – a proud Bronx native – took me to my first game about half a century ago when I was 7 and we saw three future Hall of Famers (Mantle, Berra, and Kaline).
But I cant be at every game. So like a lot of season ticket holders, I put tickets for the games I cant go to up for sale on StubHub. I had a weeks worth of tickets on sale at face value as I watched the press conference with Alex Rodriguez and Yankees management. I figured he was calling it quits at the end of 2016 due to lackluster play. But instead he was calling it quits in a week!
I raced to my computer to take down my tickets for what would surely be a fast-sellout game. But they were snatched up in the 30 seconds it took for me to log-in. Sold to some quick-reacting StubHub buyer.
So wait… was the common reaction from the aforementioned friends and family. You got picked-off by a high frequency ticket trader?!? Ha. Ha. Ha. How does THAT feel? Sort of like the stock market, isnt it!?
Almost instinctively, I started to explain that well, no, not like the stock market. If it were, trading of Yankees tickets would have been halted until responsible intermediaries and market makers could help determine a fair price and have a smooth reopening of the ticket buying process, and so on. But my somewhat inside baseball explanation of market structure couldnt rise above the din of laughter.
So the moral of this lighthearted summer blog is: If you are using an online auction platform that doesnt halt trading for disruptive, market-moving news and isnt in the practice of breaking the trades that result from it, be vigilant! And most importantly, when the Yankees schedule a press conference … pull down those StubHub tickets ASAP! Or at the very least, widen those spreads way out to compensate for the uncertainty.
