baseball strike. season tickets???

What happens to season ticket holders if there’s a strike? Are they refunded money for the games that are not played? Are they stuck with tickets and no recourse?

Refunded? Are you smoking something? :slight_smile:

As far as I know, no - although it’s certainly up to the club, as opposed to MLB as a whole. They would already be losing money on a daily basis with no games played, so I’d have to think they’d be loath to give money back to anyone.

I pretty sure that you are refunded. You’re also refunded for games that we cancelled due to weather or something and not relplayed.

Haj

According to this rec.sport.baseball Usenet posting from 12/8/1994, Houston Astros season ticket holders were offered refunds or credit toward games in 1995. While I don’t have proof, I’m willing to bet the other teams did something similar.

Zev Steinhardt

I just emailed the Phillies. With any luck, I’ll get an honest answer. :wink:

They get refunds. Promise. Every team. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be season ticket holders for much longer.

They would have to give refunds. You can’t charge somebody for something and then not deliver the product. You bought a ticket for a baseball game. If there is no game, the other party didn’t hold up its end of the bargain.

If you paid money for a concert and the band didn’t show up and the concert was cancelled, you would get your money back.

I don’t think baseball uses it, but I don’t think you would necessarily get refunds if you had to pay one of those “personal seat licenses” that football is fond of. Those aren’t tickets per se, so the teams may pocket that money, although refunds on those might be given for PR reasons.

Peronal Seat Licenses (PSL) are a one-time expenditure, meaning you pay a fee once and you “own” the PSL for the rest of your life, and can sell it or even bequeath it if you wish. So I doubt you could get a refund for that, without giving back the PSL.

Saying “the rest of your life” was going a bit far; I’m sure the contract states some term like the active life of the stadium or whatnot.

Well, I contacted the Phillies, cause that’s the kinda nice guy I am, and here’s the response:

So you were right in saying they had done so before - chances are they’d do it this time too, if it came to that.

How 'bout if the team goes under completely (as Bud Selig has been intimating is possible this season)?

“Go to the back of the creditors’ line?” or is it not quite that bad?

I’d imagine that you’re SOL. Season tickets are a contract with the team, right? If the Devil Rays, for example, go broke this season, then I don’t think that the Tampa Bay players could sue Major League Baseball for unpaid wages, because their contract is with the Devil Rays Baseball Company (or whatever the team’s legal embodiment is called).

If a baseball team filed for bankruptcy, the resolution of the players’ contracts and salaries would depend upon whether or not the team filed for Chapter 7 or 11.

If Chapter 11 were opted for, the team could keep operating and most likely the players would still get paid. If a team misses payroll by 10 days, then the players become free agents and then the team has fewer assets.

In a Chapter 7, the players would have to line up with all the other creditors to get their money I assume.