StubHub, a ticket reseller, has filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster and the Golden State Warriors’ front office, seeking “to stop unfair and illegal anti-competitive business practices that prevent fans from deciding how they want to resell their tickets and which artificially drive up ticket prices.”
Specifically, the plaintiff alleged that the defendants violated the antitrust law as well as California law that forbids unfair competition. It allegedly did this by “cancelling fans’ regular-season and playoff-game tickets when those fans chose to use StubHub and other competitive exchanges to resell tickets.” The plaintiff also alleged that Ticketmaster and the Warriors’ front office broke the law “by unlawfully threatening fans with cancellation to force them to use Ticketmaster’s resale exchange exclusively.”
StubHub claimed, in its lawsuit, that it made repeated requests of the Warriors and Ticketmaster executives to change their policy. Allegedly rebuffed by the defendants, “StubHub simply wants Ticketmaster and the Warriors’ front office to embrace competitive efforts rather than monopoly tactics.”
In its lawsuit, StubHub’s frets that TicketMaster’s association with teams could become a trend.
“If the anti-competitive actions complained herein are not stopped, Ticketmaster is likely to seek to replicate them with other teams,” according to the law suit. “As a result, millions of Americans will be held captive to a monopoly secondary ticketing exchange.”
Ticketmaster fired back, calling the suit “baseless.”
“We are disappointed that StubHub has filed a baseless lawsuit that asks the courts to help prop up its business against true fan-friendly competition,” Jared Smith, president of Ticketmaster North America, told the media. “NBA teams like the Golden State Warriors have implemented ticket exchanges powered by Ticketmaster because they want ticket resale to be a secure experience, not an opportunity for scalping and fraud.”
Joseph M. Hanna, of Goldberg Segalla, suggested that no one should be surprised by the Warriors’ actions.
“The Golden State Warriors have been very successful on the court as of late,” the attorney wrote. “This year, the team clinched a playoff spot for the third straight season and secured the first seed in the playoffs in the western conference. The team has also sold out 118 straight home games in addition to maxing out its season ticket membership. Warriors tickets are, needless to say, a hot commodity. To take advantage of their recent surge in popularity, the team took actions to restrict resale of season tickets to Ticketmaster’s platform, which StubHub cites as the basis for its lawsuit.”
