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You are not allowed to get season tickets if you live outside of WNY.


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Strange, because I know a number of out of town ST holders, but theyve all had their tickets for years.

 

I'd guess this is fallout from fan representation 2-3 seasons ago. I was a local ST holder, and couldnt believe how many Away Team fans were at each game. Much more than years past. Made for a crappier experience and people were mentioning it by the end of the season. They've been cracking down on keeping tickets local as much as possible since then, and it's already improved. I guess they figure, sure a Buffalo-based fan can still resell, but they are more likely to find someone personally/local to take the tickets instead of putting every game on stubhub and not caring.

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I live on Long Island about 432 miles from the stadium. I have had my seasons since 1982. I can only make a few games a year and I am one of those terrible people who may sell a game if I cannot find anyone to take them. Unfortunately, ticketmaster does not have an option that says "Sell to Bills fans only" so while I am encouraged to use the Bills official reseller, there is no way for me to keep out rival fans.

 

Farther up thread, some mentioned the December tickets that are near impossible to get rid of, will the Bills reimburse me for those?, If they are worried about losing a few dollars that I may gain on an early season game, I'd be more than happy to let them have the profit above list price if they will do the same for the December games when I lose 90% of the tickets value. I take a risk when I buy them, that is on me, but they should not be able to limit my access to tickets just because of my location. 

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23 minutes ago, Dalton said:

Disagree - on what factual basis do you make this statement?

Anti-discrimination law demands that individuals be treated equally in consumer transactions, and cannot be refused equal service based on things like gender, sexual orientation, nationality, age, etc.  I don't believe it to be much of a logical leap to include location of residence.

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1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

Turns out the policy has been in place for a couple of years now.  

 

It makes some sense to me, especially if you think the team is on its way to some years as a championship contender.   

 

How many of these requests do you think they get?   Maybe 100 a year?   How many are from legitimate fans who want to attend most games, and how many are from people who will be reselling?   I'd bet at least half are resellers.   So the Bills are giving up $100,000 of revenue by saying no to out of town buyers.   Half of them are serious fans, many or most of whom will find a way to circumvent the rules to get tickets - usually by just having a friend or relative buy for them.   The resellers are more likely just to move on.   In other words, the Bills will still half the tickets, and it'll only cost them about $50,000 a year to have said no.   When the Bills are winning, it means they have those unsold tickets in inventory to sell to local fans who want season tickets or even single game tickets.  

 

This does several things:   1.  There are fewer fans of the opposing team in the stadium.   2.  The Bills are able to satisfy ticket demand in the local area, making more fans that really matter to them happy and increasing secondary market value to the Bills.   Local advertisers are more interested in marketing with the Bills the more local fans are happy.  3,  Selling locally means more kids coming to the games, and that helps build fan loyalty in the next generation.   

 

 

The bolded is because I think that might be a slight underestimation of what some one will move on from if they can make money at it.

 

I agree with everything you said and it was informative. I really don't have a complete understanding of the situation honestly. I don't doubt it would cut down on it. I just will never doubt what a person would do when money is involved.

 

The only reason I say this is because what I love and hate most about people is what they can accomplish when motivated strongly by something.

Edited by Lfod
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18 hours ago, fridge said:

I’ve had season for the last two years living in California.

 

Do they know you're in CA? I'm thinking about getting seasons, not for this year...but the 2019 season. I have people in Buffalo, but don't want jump thru all the hoops to get them if I have to give them a WNY address, etc... Seems stupid. The games I can't attend, I'll give to family / friends who live there. 

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22 hours ago, simool said:

Makes sense to me. Too many out of town people buy season tickets to only attend the premium games and then they sell the others online.  Generally to opposing teams.  Sucks, but that is the world we live in.  

 

Taking it as you are not a real fan is kind of over the top.  It's a business decision.

 

Then they should enforce same policy on scalpers who love locally and do same thing.

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Huh,  I was actually going to get season tickets this year because I finally have the funding to do so.

 

I live literally just across the border in Canada.  It was nothing for me to hop over the border to watch the playoff game at Sports City Pizza Pub on Niagara Street, and then finally make the visit a couple weeks later to the original Duff's for wings.  But I guess I'm not a real enough lifelong fan to make the same hop over the border for more Bills games, which I've been attending from time to time on a single game basis.

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4 hours ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

Anti-discrimination law demands that individuals be treated equally in consumer transactions, and cannot be refused equal service based on things like gender, sexual orientation, nationality, age, etc.  I don't believe it to be much of a logical leap to include location of residence.

 

It would require not such leap at all because there would be no logic to it whatsoever.

 

2 hours ago, Limeaid said:

 

Then they should enforce same policy on scalpers who love locally and do same thing.

 

So no they can't even love locally?

 

Does that include some parking lot/back seat,  jersey-for-BJ trading?

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2 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

It would require not such leap at all because there would be no logic to it whatsoever.

You believe there is no logic to the fact that we have laws which prohibit vendors from not treating customers equally in consumer transactions, and that they might be evenly applied to situations in which vendors are looking to not treat customers differently in consumer transactions?

 

:wacko:

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1 hour ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

You believe there is no logic to the fact that we have laws which prohibit vendors from not treating customers equally in consumer transactions, and that they might be evenly applied to situations in which vendors are looking to not treat customers differently in consumer transactions?

 

:wacko:

There's also the simple exercise of considering the logical extreme.  Could a case be conceivably made (not likely to happen, but still POSSIBLE) for say a religious reason someone has to live somewhere, which happens to be outside of your "local sales area", requiring you to make an exception in their case?  Yes, so that would be an unenforceable policy in the first place.  It wouldn't be fair to everyone else for THAT person to be able to get tickets based on their religion when they can't.  The policy could then also be abused, with anyone able to claim they live where they do for some nebulous, legally protected reason.

 

*edit*

Basically in many cases that kind of practice is sort of -technically- legal, but fans would have a legal argument to take them to court.  This issue has come up many times in the past in other states.

http://fortune.com/2014/01/15/were-the-seahawks-and-broncos-ticket-bans-legal/

Edited by 1ManRaid
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5 hours ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

You believe there is no logic to the fact that we have laws which prohibit vendors from not treating customers equally in consumer transactions, and that they might be evenly applied to situations in which vendors are looking to not treat customers differently in consumer transactions?

 

:wacko:

 

Forgetting the ill-logic of concluding that prohibiting one from not treating others equally is equivalent to prohibiting one not treating others differently.....these laws were profiting discrimination based on sex, race, sexual orientation, religion, illness/disability, age, etc---you know all of this.

 

You also know restricting the sale of a product to a certain location violates no anti discrimination laws.  It's a policy that doesn't exclude anyone based on accepted protected classes. One's zip code isn't one of those.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

Forgetting the ill-logic of concluding that prohibiting one from not treating others equally is equivalent to prohibiting one not treating others differently.....these laws were profiting discrimination based on sex, race, sexual orientation, religion, illness/disability, age, etc---you know all of this.

 

You also know restricting the sale of a product to a certain location violates no anti discrimination laws.  It's a policy that doesn't exclude anyone based on accepted protected classes. One's zip code isn't one of those.

 

 

I know how the law is written, I also know how the law has been expanded on via judicial interpretation.  As I said, I don't think it's been ajudicated, but logical processes should dictate that if discriminatory policy is bad, then discriminatory policy is bad.   Discriminatory policy exists to benefit one group of people over another.  I think it would be easy to prove discrimination, and difficult to justify it, in a court of law.

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5 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

I know how the law is written, I also know how the law has been expanded on via judicial interpretation.  As I said, I don't think it's been ajudicated, but logical processes should dictate that if discriminatory policy is bad, then discriminatory policy is bad.   Discriminatory policy exists to benefit one group of people over another.  I think it would be easy to prove discrimination, and difficult to justify it, in a court of law.

 

 

You can't say you "know how the law is written" and at the same time, change everything that is in the law.

 

Businesses have the right to refuse service to for any reason as long as they are not basing their reason on discrimination against a protected class.   In fact, they can even refuse service to an individual in a protected class if it is not for an arbitrary reason and as long as that reason is applied to all other individuals equally (such as a dress code, or...requiring customers to be "local").

 

If you are trolling some anti-"activist judiciary" rage, just come out and say so.  

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30 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

 

You can't say you "know how the law is written" and at the same time, change everything that is in the law.

 

Businesses have the right to refuse service to for any reason as long as they are not basing their reason on discrimination against a protected class.   In fact, they can even refuse service to an individual in a protected class if it is not for an arbitrary reason and as long as that reason is applied to all other individuals equally (such as a dress code, or...requiring customers to be "local").

 

If you are trolling some anti-"activist judiciary" rage, just come out and say so.  

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you here, so I don't know why you're acting like a jack ass.

 

Protected classes, which the anti-discrimination laws serve, do so through legal carve outs which are often created by judicial interpretation.  I don't think that it is unreasonable to speculate that that the interpretation of the law could extend it to discriminating from individuals from other regions when the sole purpose of the policy in question is to deny entry to a business serving the pubic because of where they live.

 

 

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