Towards the end of last season, there were a glut of Cubs tickets available on ticket reselling website StubHub, many of which of which were available well below face value, and in some cases were under $1.  To their credit, the Cubs saw that they had a problem.  Unfortunately, they decided that the problem was StubHub itself and the sellers trying to undermine the Cubs own ticket sales by offering the tickets at prices so low.  Which, of course, is utter hogwash.

Among the new “features” the come along with the Cubs new agreement with StubHub are:

• A minimum listing price of $3
  
• An additional “transfer” fee for sellers, in the amount of $1.50.
• The ending of sales six hours before the game starts

So, if tickets are listed and sell for the minimum of $3, a seller will take home (assuming the good folks at StubHub round up) $1.28.

Instead of making sure that the $1 listings went away, the Cubs should have looked at why they were there in the first place: overpriced tickets for a team that had no chance of being competitive, let alone contending.  The choice wasn’t between listing the tickets for $20 or $1, it was between getting pennies on the dollar versus eating the whole investment.

With the Cubs looking like they are still a few years away from contending, the likely outcome of these moves will be another September with the stands half empty and season ticket holders once again left holding $30 tickets that they can hopefully exchange for $1.28.