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02 August 2007

StubHub: Official scalper of MLB

MLB Advanced Media won't do everything after all. Or at least it seems that way after MLBAM and ticket reseller StubHub partnered up on a 5-year revenue sharing agreement. StubHub, a subsidiary of eBay, is already the big player in this market with a handful of upstarts and megaseller Ticketmaster nipping at its heels. The deal isn't exclusive as some teams already have existing technology at their disposal, but that should change gradually as those agreements expire.

The secondary ticket market isn't one frequented by A's fans due to the normally plentiful supply of regularly priced and discount seats, even for walkups. As the team moves into new digs, this should change somewhat - though the A's aren't predicting constant sellouts. I personally have only bought tickets using the Giants' Double Play system once, and I liked the experience.

If you had free time to head to Detroit next Friday, you could catch the A's-Tigers tilt in a lower level suite for $2700. Or a single mezzanine seat for $26. I've seen drawings of the minisuite feature that will be introduced at Cisco Field, and I have zero doubt it'll be seriously popular, especially from a resale standpoint (if the A's allow it). But that's for tomorrow...