But the secondary market is somehow usurping those expectations by sneakily incorporating the longtime enemy of the live sportsgoer: service fees. These service fees can be as high as 25% of the original ticket price, meaning that if you’re buying seats for a group of four, you’re essentially purchasing an extra ticket without the benefit of the added legroom next to you.
Such was the case for tickets in the 300 section of Oracle Park for Game 1. As of Thursday afternoon, StubHub had a pack of four tickets listed at $250 each for section 327. As I went forward in the purchasing process, I eventually saw that the total was listed as $1,225.50, which included a service fee of $54.38 per ticket and a fulfillment fee of $2.00 per ticket.
SeatGeek wasn’t much better. A pair of tickets in that same section were listed at $192, which eventually rose to $254 when I went into the settings and changed the menu so that it would show the price tag with fees included. That’s an extra $62 for each ticket, which was marked as a “Great Deal” on the secondary market site.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where these fees come from and how they’re calculated, since the extent to which you know they exist is when they pop up at the end of your order. Even dividing the fee by the listed price of the ticket in order to determine a consistent percentage yields varying results. It’s remarkable how nebulous the fees are, considering they’ve been a source of consumer complaints since 1999.
I decided to take one for the team(s) and searched through the terms of service for the major reselling websites, which are StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats. Though the service fees for postseason tickets weren’t consistent, the language used when talking about the fees in this often-ignored packed page of words was — and that’s not a compliment.
Vivid said that the fees they charge “can be set and adjusted at any time and for any reason by Vivid Seats.” StubHub’s fees “vary depending on event type, ticket type and location” and can be changed “in its sole and absolute discretion.” SeatGeek also “reserves the right at any time to change its Service Fees,” and they can even retain the fees if the event itself gets canceled.
Even with the most charitable read, it sure does seem like the reseller sites can abruptly jack up the service fees whenever they want, for whatever reason they want. But I wanted to give at least one of the resellers a chance to clear the air, so I emailed StubHub on Thursday afternoon asking for clarification. I gave them a deadline of Friday at 9 a.m., and will update this post with their response (or lack thereof).
