Major League Baseball is preparing to allow its thirty teams to issue new ticket policies to facilitate refunds for games missed due to the coronavirus shutdown, Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal reports. To this point, the league had treated those contests as postponements that would, in theory, be made up.
It appears as if every organization will set its own course. It’s not yet clear if the league will limit the timeframes or issue other limitations on how teams can respond. Some clubs had already begun facilitating requests from fans who reached out in hopes of obtaining a refund.
While the league hasn’t yet cancelled 2020 regular season games, and doesn’t intend to do so at present, teams will evidently now have greater flexibility to go ahead with refunds. That seems to match the reality of the situation. There’s no reason to think that we’ll have typical games with fans in the stands in the coming months, if at all in 2020, and many ticketholders are surely in need of the cash they had previously plunked down for tickets.
It has been one week since a lawsuit was filed seeking class action status to challenge the league’s decision not to issue ticket refunds. Whether that action will proceed, perhaps in some modified form, remains to be seen.
What about a refund for the mlb.tv subscription too? I have not asked for a refund yet, but I had to point that out too.
08 – I got a refund for my mlb.tv but had to fight for it. They argued that they have a 5 day refund policy. My argument was I paid for a product that they didn’t provide. They eventually refunded it in full.
Thank you for sharing that information. I bought a 1 year membership and right now I’m paying for something that I’m not watching. I will wait just a little bit more to see if the season starts.
If I were you, personally I’d fight to get the refund now for the full price you paid, because if there is a season played, they’ll likely have mlb.tv at a much less rate of what you paid. Same as how in a normal season, the price decreases based on how many remaining games there are.
Thanks. I will ask for a refund.
It’s interesting if a bit strange to say that MLB is “allowing” the thirty teams to develop refund policies, when in fact MLB is the thirty teams, no more, no less. So in reality the teams are giving themselves permission, and that opens up more questions than it answers.
Like the movie Goodfellas…You don’t have the money? FU pay me. The Phillies have been holding my money since December collecting interest. I want interest on my money. No credit, no b.s. FU pay me. My kids want to eat.
So you bought tickets in December, knowing that you wouldn’t be able to feed your kids if your income were disrupted?
Sounds like bad financial planning on your part. Start an emergency fund the second you get back to work, and don’t buy anything you don’t need. Your kids deserve it.
Come on guy every time your here with the same pathetic comments get a life
Douchebag
Or maybe he shells out money for the season and is able to make most (all?) of his loot back by selling tickets to certain games ?? I’m aware the mental acuity to perform a complex maneuver like this is beyond you… so I’ll repeat what the other dude said: don’t be a douchebag
LOL, you want me to be sympathetic toward a scalper? Wow.
BTW, insults and name calling don’t make a weak argument any better.
@renbutler
Who the heck are you to say something so ignorant to someone you do not even know?
Who are you to judge others?
What’s ignorant about it? The guy’s argument was his kids can’t eat without that money. Sounds like he made a stupid argument and got called out on it.
I agree BlueSky. We’ll probably see large market teams with large season ticket holders give refunds. They generally have no problems with attendance and for the most part, excellent owners. This gives them cover from small market teams, some with poor ownership, so-so season ticket amounts who may not be in favor of refunding.
I’m more in favor of a broad policy that should have forced MLB teams to repay season ticket holders should they wish to receive a refund, but chitzy owners/teams outnumber the legit ones now and that was never going to happen.
A possible scenario. What I don’t understand is why the teams have communicated so poorly with the fans and failed to let them (us) know they (we) aren’t forgotten. It costs nothing, and since the entire sport and industry depends on their (our) loyalty, the approach so far seems hugely shortsighted and needlessly damaging to the sport.
I can’t speak for every team, but as a 20 game ticket holder, a representative from the Padres called me personally and talked to me back in March letting me know the season was on hold and that when indecision was made about the season my tickets would either be refunded, exchangeable, or I could transfer my purchase to next year in a worse case scenario.
BlueSky.. I believe it is because they are pretty much locked into speaking as 1 with regulations and using the commissioner as a mouthpiece, which I myself believe is wrong.
Just because it is a league, each team is individually owned in a free and capitalist country with just a leader so to speak that was originally put there to settle petty squabbles amongst a group of owners of said teams. What has evolved now is a person, who now wants to decide how each of these owners acts with regard to everything they do and speak about their own teams and that isn’t any American way I know of, tho some lately are pushing for total control.
Some group of owners needs to curtail the powers of the league office and remind them they are not the ones on the hook for “x” billion dollars, but just lackeys drawing a salary.
We see this in government all the time now and it has spread into sports.. Kick it out before the evil spreads.
I take it you believe the commissioner is too strong. I think the position is too weak. The teams are individually owned but they are franchises of one business and not independent at all. Having 30 bosses who can’t reach consensus is going to undercut the ability of the commissioner to make decisions. Keep in mind, the office was created in the first place because the owners were incapable of making decisions to protect their businesses and finally they recognized that it threatened their interests. I think we’re seeing again now why the game needs a commissioner who isn’t constantly looking over his shoulder at the 16 owners who could vote to fire him on any given day. MLB needs a strong commissioner just as any successful corporation requires a strong CEO.
I get what you are saying there Blue Sky, but the game has not had one IMO who took the best interests of ALL owners, along with the game itself and presented them consistently since Bowie Kuhn. Giamati mostly was favorable.
Consistently with an eye for all the owners I mean looking out for ALL of them, allowing them to be individuals (loud Steinbrenner and eccentric Charlie O). Realizing that some either teams, or owners flat out needed to be gone and making sure it happened. Charlie O in Oakland, Calvin Griffith in Minnesota.
That’s not a coddling Commish, but strong fisted type and he did not play favorites. Can give more examples of things he did.. But you get the idea.Wielding power in the correct way, where there is no bias can be beneficial.. It’s when sides are taken and we’ve seen this pretty much consistently since Kuhn left and it’s been flat out towards the so called small teams. THAT is wrong.
I don’t think it’s humanly possible for a commissioner to always act in the best interests of every team owner. Some decisions will naturally please some more than others. Right now MLB is operating like McDonald’s would be if it was run by the franchisees of the burger restaurants. If that happened before long the franchisees would have no burger restaurants. The office of the commissioner was created by a crisis for the sport and I suspect we’re headed for another one. Maybe a collapse of the sport is what it will take to convince ownership to loosen its grip and rationalize the business. I hope not, but I am not at all confident. I have see too many bad decisions being made and I am not one who blames that on the commissioner, I blame them on the 30 owners who have put the commissioner in such a weak position.
Can agree some with you there also. The owners themselves (some) are responsible for allowing the problems to fester by allowing problem owners and teams to remain both in place and in some cases.. At all. i believe the sport is over saturated with too many teams for what salary structures and intake to these teams themselves need to be in order to remain viable.
Franchise groups which are of the lower order are close to 50% of the 30 total and probably all vote as a block towards every tight fisted, penny pinching maneuver that they can. Eliminating half dozen of those would go a long way.
Season ticket holders get a choice of refund or 2021 tickets.
Individual tickets holders get refund or 2021 tickets with voucher for 1 food and 1 drink for each ticket or free parking.
Solutions!
As a Cubs season ticket holder, it has been reported through the media, that the Cubs will offer 5% interest if we decide to apply the money to 2021 tickets OR a full refund of our money. Of course, there still needs to be the first determination of the games at Wrigley being canceled or played in front of no fans. Like the article says, until today the games are only considered postponed with the intent of making them up.
Calling the games postponed protects the teams under the rain check policy. We all know that two months of games (and counting) cannot possibly be made up, so this was merely a ploy by the teams to avoiding even talking about refunds. It’s an obvious shuck and jive, which is why they were sued.
It was not a ploy by teams. On March 27th I received an email from my season ticket rep that says, and I quote,
“Regarding the season, unfortunately, we are still in a holding pattern and simply do not know just yet if the games will be rescheduled or canceled outright. All 30 clubs are awaiting definitive direction from MLB as the 2020 season will look like. Once MLB provides more clarity, we will update you with the details. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time.”
At that point we probably had areas that didn’t have stay at home orders and I am certain the goal then and the goal now remains to play as much as possible.
I think it was a ploy. You should read your ticket contract sometime if you think it wasn’t. They are pretty standard throughout baseball and provide for rain checks for postponed games. This is why they’ve called these game postponed instead of canceled, it puts off the inevitable. Their use of this justification is the basis for the class action suit, so it isn’t just me saying so.
The last time the Dodger communicated with ticket holders was the middle of last month. Their “season updates” page hasn’t changed at all since then. My point here is it costs nothing to communicate with fans, but it sure can cost a lot to treat them as if they don’t matter.
I’m not only telling you, I’m showing the exact verbiage I got from the Cubs. As a long time ticket holder I can assure that there are few organizations as transparent as the Cubs.
And as I said they are waiting on direction from MLB. There is still more to be decided and relayed.
The teams are MLB, so it is disingenuous for any one of them to claim that they are waiting for direction, when they are the ones creating the direction themselves. The lack of direction is a function of MLB’s dysfunctional management structure. How many times do we need to see that in action to know? In any case the verbiage from the Dodgers is virtually the same as what you are getting from the Cubs and doesn’t prove any point that I can see except that the teams aren’t making much effort to communicate with fans beyond these generic and infrequent statements. They could have chosen to say more at any time, they have simply chosen not to do it. Which, was my point in the first place.
MLB in general would do well to recall the famous quote by Maya Angelou (“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”). If MLB makes the fans feel like they’re unimportant or that keeping their money is more important than keeping their loyalty, I’d bet there will be a heck of a price to pay when this is over. More than once in my life, a company has earned my longtime business by how they handled a problem, and similarly, more than once I’ve never done business again with companies who essentially said they didn’t care and they were keeping my cash.
That used to be called winning the battle, losing the war.
Amen. Very well said. It’s distressing after MLB handled the cheating scandal so badly to see them botch the next one and so soon afterwards.
This is truly miserable timing for MLB (as well as all of us, of course). I’ve been a fan of baseball since I was a little kid, well over a half century ago. My faith was already a tad shaky after all the cheating scandals; I hate the idea that now, when somebody has a breakout postseason, I’ll be wondering first if there was some cheating going on before being able to appreciate the mastery of the game. Now, with a lot of places showing older games, I’m being reminded that I enjoyed the way the game was played more back then than I do now. All of this added together will have me wondering how much of a fan I’ll be once current baseball is again readily available.
I hope after a few innings of that first game that I realize I still love the game in its modern form. I hope. Don’t abuse the fans, MLB…
Yeah, it’s terrible timing, yet so many of MLB’s problems are self-inflicted it seems like the sport as a business will eventually be forced to look at how it is managed. Maybe this will be the moment, I don’t know. It will take a financial crisis and up until now the sport has been awash in dollars and didn’t need to take management very seriously. I think a stronger commissioner who doesn’t serve at the whim and pleasure of the owners might be a solution.
I agree, but the owners are the ones who vote the commish in, so I don’t hold much hope that ANYBODY who gets the nod won’t be owner friendly.
Well right the commissioner will always be hired by the owners and will always work for them and be looking after their interests. What I’m suggesting is one who serves for a longer contract and can’t be fired for anything but cause during that period. He’d have a freer hand to make the tough calls that the 30 owners seemingly can’t make, presumably because they squabble amongst themselves. Just a thought. Something has to be done to improve the business management decisions, and I suspect the owners will see that too eventually.
How are they abusing fans? How do you think these businesses operate? That they have a constant flow of liquid cash they can just shell out for 100% refunds immediately. Business operates on margins. When not much revenue or far less than forecasted is coming in it creates budget issues. Don’t be so naive to think everything happens with the snap of a finger. Everyone is trying to work through this
Allowing each team to have their “ own policy” just shows you how out of touch MLB and Manstupid is. I think he wakes up everyday thinking it is still 1950. He is killing the game.
The commissioner works for the 30 owners. If you don’t like what he is doing, then what you really dislike is what the owners are doing. I don’t know why this needs to be explained every time something like this comes up, but there it is.
The Rangers have in the past offered STH’s the option to get a refund or apply the cost of playoff games not played to the next season. I would presume they would do the same in this situation.
Be interesting to see how this plays out. Might be worth running again so those of us who have purchased season, partial plan, or individual game tickets can compare how various teams handle this.
Personally I have a 20 premium e voucher pack from the Angels and then tickets to opening day and a Dodgers game. So the team definitely owes me for Opening Day, but the Dodgers game is still on the schedule and the vouchers could still be used if they allow fans.
It’s weird that they still have to use “postponement” or “canceled”. It seems like it’s already been decided that any sporting event in the foreseeable future, will be without fans. We aren’t going to our home team parks this season so at least now, they’re giving the option to get a refund or credit to future tickets. Amazing what a law suit will do to get the ball rolling
Why are you all being an angry elf.. seems teams will be offering refunds tomorrow since MLB has given them permission. My rep has told me she has tried but the ticket system has restricted access..