The SF Giants Partnership with StubHub is Moronic

I purchased two tickets for opening day for the Giants back in January.  The tickets are on the front row on the third base side.  Needless to say, they were expensive.  But it’s our son’s first game – and while he’s only seven months old, these are important memories.  My wife and I have been looking forward to this for a very long time.

Unfortunately, I still haven’t gotten my tickets from StubHub.

When I contacted them a few weeks ago, they informed me that the Giants hadn’t yet sent the tickets to the original buyer, who was going to then upload them to StubHub, where I would then download them.  And this was all supposed to go down on 4/2 (today).  Well first of all – let’s address the fact that I just paid all this money for opening day tickets and I don’t even get the physical tickets?  I have to print them out myself?  What about the souveneir of the actual ticket?  Second – it’s a lie that the Giants haven’t sent out tickets.  I know other season ticket holders that got their tickets three weeks ago.  And finally – how does it make sense to make a fan wait until the 11th hour to get their tickets anyway?  I ordered tickets for the A’s Opening Day and got them in the mail less than one week after the purchase.

Now here we are on 4/2, and I look at my StubHub account and the status of my tickets still says “not yet delivered.”  So I call StubHub and have to wait on hold thirty minutes just to talk to some kid that makes minimum wage and can’t give me any more info than what I already know (that the tickets haven’t been uploaded to me yet).  But he does assure me that the tickets are guaranteed.  So I look at StubHub’s guarantee, and all it really promises is that if the tickets don’t arrive in time I’ll get a full refund.  Well who f’ing cares?  I want to go to the game and get the exact seats that I paid for nearly FOUR MONTHS AGO.

I got so pissed that I looked on the Giants’ site and sent an email to the head suit that oversees ticketing.  To his credit, he immediately replied, and is sorting this out.  I did it more than anything to just let the Giants know that their “partner” is giving their fans the worst ticket delivery they’ve experienced in memory.  But I was surprised that he actually responded and is working to help me out.

But back to the partnership with StubHub – how exactly does it make sense for a great organization to entrust the critical exchange of goods to a third party?  I thought the Giants “Double Play Fan Zone” ticket exchange system of old was awesome.  Worked like a charm.  Buy tickets directly from other fans, and then pick them up at will call.  So they try to fix something that ain’t broke by introducing a wortheless third party into the exchange.  What’s next?  A call center in India?

In my humble opinion, the Giants should handle their own ticket distribution.  They did it well for as long as I’ve been going to games.  And the only party that’s benefitting from this new arrangement is StubHub.  Not the Giants, and certainly not the fans.

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