The New York Yankees are putting the adage "better safe than sorry" into play for its upcoming 2016 season.
The historic Major League Baseball franchise announced via its website that it's discontinuing the practice of printing tickets at home to scan at their gates, as they'll instead push for fans to participate in their mobile ticketing.
"Print-at-home paper tickets (PDFs) are being discontinued so as to further combat fraud and counterfeiting of tickets associated with print-at-home paper tickets (PDFs)," the Yankees announced. "In addition to traditional hard stock paper tickets, the Yankees will be offering the opportunity for fans to receive mobile tickets on a fan's smartphone."
They added: "Mobile ticketing is a completely voluntary, opt-in feature. All season ticket licensees and group ticket buyers will automatically receive traditional hard stock paper tickets. For fans purchasing individual game tickets online at yankees.com, Ticketmaster.com, or via Ticketmaster telephone, you will have the option of receiving traditional hard stock paper tickets or mobile tickets at the time of initial purchase. Fans purchasing individual game tickets at the Yankee Stadium Ticket Office or at Yankees Clubhouse Shops will receive only traditional hard stock paper tickets (and will not have an option to receive mobile tickets or the option to convert their tickets to mobile tickets). Print-at-home paper tickets (PDFs) will no longer be available."
The team goes on to list every phone that's compatible with its mobile ticketing platform, including Apple's iPhone and the LG G2, to name a couple.
All fans would have to do is bring their phone to the game and pull up the image of the ticket's barcode on their screen, which will be scanned at the live gate of Yankees Stadium by a team attendant. Each ticket smartphone display contains all the information that's on a traditional hard stock paper ticket, including the date, Bronx Bombers' opponent, time, section, row and set.
Like this idea or find it annoying? On one hand, you avoid the step of having to print out a ticket. On the other, it's using your credit card online for yet another reason — something of which some people are still weary.
