Regardless of who wins this lawsuit, fans will likely lose.
Two dozen Knicks and Rangers season ticket holders — self described “resellers” who glom up tickets after which sell them on StubHub and secondary markets at inflated prices — accuse Madison Square Garden of cutting them off to extend its own profits, in response to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
The plaintiffs, mostly tri-state area residents and one Israeli, say MSG for years willingly sold them ducats, but now that the Rangers are “a perennial playoff contender” and the Knicks “relevant” again, the Garden wants its tickets back.
The Sept. 7 filing has fueled an epic battle between the plaintiffs’ attorneys and MSG. On Friday, the Post reported that almost 60 lawyers on the industrial law and government relations firm of Davidoff Hutcher & Citron have been banned from Rangers and Knicks games because their clients are suing MSG, recent court papers allege.
Within the September case, the scorned scalpers contend “MSG’s end game is to reclaim the tickets, create a monopoly, and reap a windfall by selling the tickets exclusively through its own ‘authorized’ out-of-state reseller,” the Sept. 7 filing says. Currently, face-value tickets can only be purchased directly from Ticketmaster or the Garden’s box office.
“After a few years of counting on [the local resellers] to buy Knicks and Rangers season tickets at exorbitant prices when the teams respective performance and records were abysmal, MSG has in utter bad faith elected to not renew” their season tickets, the suit says.
The 21-page criticism paints the scalpers in a noble light.
“For years plaintiffs have been loyal to MSG through playoff droughts, postseason
failures, coaching musical chairs, and constant disruptive sideshows. During that very same time period, it was MSG who actively solicited plaintiffs’ business, including through the COVID-19 pandemic,” the suits says.
An MSG spokesman countered, “We wish our season ticket memberships to be made up of our loyal Knicks and Rangers fans, not skilled ticket brokers. This lawsuit is without merit, and we maintain the appropriate to not offer season tickets.”
In the newest salvo, the legal eagles allege MSG declared the historic arena was “banning” the firm’s “attorneys from entering venues owned and operated” by MSG, in response to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit from Thursday.
It got here as a surprise to a lot of the firm’s team who aren’t involved within the legal brawl with MSG, and who now find themselves “pariahs,” the Thursday filing claims. The suit is asking for an emergency order from a judge to reinstate firm co-founder and managing partner Larry Hutcher’s season tickets and overturn the ban against the firm.
Either way, there is no such thing as a free lunch for Rangers or Knicks fans.
A middle-ice seat for the Rangers-Tampa Bay Lightning opening-night game on Oct. 11 ran $1,100 when you purchased through MSG-partner Ticketmaster, but upwards of $2,000 on the secondary market. A ticket near the ground on the Knicks’ opening game Oct. 21 vs. the Detroit Pistons will cost you $1,991 when you buy on the secondary market, and $490 through Ticketmaster, in response to recent listings.
The Garden’s actions restrict the “existing free market” and can drive up ticket prices, the scalpers claim.
“There isn’t any doubt that the typical ticket buyer can be benefited by our success within the lawsuit because it’s going to establish an actual market place for the tickets,” said Hutcher, the attorney for the ticket brokers who’s now in crosshairs of the newest litigation.
A minimum of one sports junkie wasn’t buying either side’s spiel in the unique dispute.
“It’s a lose-lose situation for the fans,” said diehard Knicks follower Michael Alcazar, 55. “It’s hard for me to feel sorry for the [resellers]. In the long run, I’m still paying a high mark-up for the tickets and the Garden prices are exorbitant too,” the Queens-bred criminal justice professor said.
The suit seeks unspecified damages.