Am I the only one having a tough time getting outraged about this one? When the SF Giants opened their stadium, they discontinued all partial plans. It was full season tickets or single games, and I didn't hear a peep about that (and this was a team that averaged 40,000 empty seats the year before at Candlestick with almost no season ticket holders, unlike the Yankees). I understand where full season ticket holders could be defensive about their rights to buy seats in future years, but partial plan holders for one of the most popular pro teams in the world?

Anyway, I'm guessing everyone will probably do better on the second-hand market, so there's little reason to fret, IMHO.

Yeah, I also find it a bit laughable when someone protests that there ought to be a law to restrict ticket sale prices (sports, concerts, etc.) to "fair market value"... meaning what he is willing to pay, regardless of whether others would be willing to pay more.

Laws to somehow restrict ticket prices to what he calls a "fair market value" are essentially rationing, since they would resell for more.

Not that I'm personally in favor of sky-high ticket prices, I just believe that if you don't like the prices, don't go. And if the asking prices are beyond what people are willing to pay, the government should not be subsidizing the seller (many examples on this site, such as San Diego's deal to pay the Chargers for unsold seats).

/rant.

The idea of someone setting ticket prices to entertainment events, based on "Fair Market", is frightening. What is "Fair Market", and who determines it?, are two very important questions, that need to be addressed. I do not want to see goverment setting prices for something unimportant in the grand scheme of things such as tickets to Yankee Stadium. If they do that, what comes next: Wages? food? clothes? land? gas? All of these things are far more important than baseball tickets.
The free market is currently in operation, fixing one problem, related to Yankee Stadium. The Yankees are already paying a price because of obstructed view seats (Getting considerably less than they expected per seat). I have no idea who is responsible for this, The Yankees, HOK Sport, or both. But this will be determined after the season. It will also be determined what changes (If any) can be made to rectify the situation (And of course, who must foot the bill for it).

Just to be clear: Market-based pricing is also "rationing." It's just rationing by ability to pay, rather than, say, who gets up earliest in the morning to get on line for tickets.

We can argue which is the better system, but they're both valid approaches to solving a situation where you have more demand than there are goods available.