Maple Leafs season-ticket holders cry foul as club uses data from resale market to raise prices
A loyal Leafs fan was dismayed when his account representative told him why his tickets were going up to about $11,900 plus tax, an increase of about 9 per cent for next season
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Most Leafs fans shrug off the annual increases as one of life’s inevitabilities. But this year, Patrick O’Brien was dismayed when his account representative told him why his tickets were going up to about $11,900 plus tax, an increase of about 9 per cent for next season. (Playoff tickets are extra – this year, they’re up between 7 and 22 per cent, depending on the round.)
For decades, Leafs season tickets have been notoriously hard to obtain because a significant number are held by corporations, which can write them off as business expenses and are generally less sensitive to price hikes than individual fans.
O’Brien, 27, has had season tickets in his family since his grandfather landed a pair in 1976 after being on the wait list for about 15 years; control of the tickets passed to him in the spring of 2020. He regards it as a privilege and speaks about the tickets as if he is a steward of a shared public trust. He resents others who flip their tickets on resale sites, such as Ticketmaster or StubHub, for outrageous profits just because the market will bear it.
That’s part of why the justification for this year’s price increase got under his skin. In an e-mail from his Leafs ticket account rep, which he shared with The Globe and Mail, he was told the company “analyzed transaction data from the resale market, along with sales data from our single-ticket inventory, to better understand ticket demand.” The e-mail noted that the information “helps us develop pricing that reflects market trends while ensuring our members continue to receive the lowest package price and an exclusive discount.”
“We feel we’re charging what the market tells us our tickets are worth,” the rep added.
In an interview, O’Brien said he felt the team was taking advantage of its most loyal customers.
“I know they still need to make money off seats. I don’t want this to implicate the on-ice performance of the Leafs – that matters the most,” he said.
“If they gave me line items – like, inflation in Canada is three per cent, the NHL salary cap is up X per cent, the cost to run a game is up two per cent – that kind of thing, I would definitely understand it. But they’re letting unknown actors control the ticket prices for them. Which is a very strange business concept to me, and an unfair one.”
Part of what irks O’Brien is that, if he’s unable to use the tickets or sell them to a friend, by putting them up for sale through the official Leafs portal (a process handled by Ticketmaster) he pays a 10-per-cent commission. So, if he doesn’t want to lose money, he has to increase the sale price by at least 11 per cent. When the club incorporates that information into its calculations for the next season, “I’m raising the prices on myself, basically,” he says.
