Chargers shut out Pats fans
Only Southern Calif. residents to get seats

By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff | January 10, 2007

The San Diego Chargers are trying to solidify their home-field advantage against the New England Patriots Sunday by restricting the sale of tickets to Southern California residents only.

Several Patriots fans who went looking for game tickets on Ticketmaster were stunned to learn that their money was no good.

"The San Diego Chargers have restricted sales to the Divisional Playoff game to residents of Southern California and the surrounding area only," Ticketmaster warned. "Residency will be based on your credit card billing address. Orders by residents outside of southern California will be canceled without notice."

Lynda Frank , a Patriots fan from Tewksbury, thought the sales restriction is unfair, if not outright illegal.

"Who do they think they are?" she asked. "Our reputation must have somehow preceded us and made us part of the fear factor associated with our team at playoff time."
Poll Fair or unfair?

Bill Johnston , a Chargers spokesman, said about 1,000 tickets went on sale Monday and sold within minutes.

"Our goal has always been to fill our stadium with Charger fans and supporters of the team. This also helps give our team the best home-field advantage possible," he said.

Johnston said the same ticket policy will be employed if the Chargers defeat the Patriots and advance to the American Football Conference title game. The hometown-fan-only restriction was not in place for regular season games of the Chargers.

The Chicago Bears also restricted sales to the team's game this Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks to fans from Illinois and northwest Indiana.

Greg Aiello , a National Football League spokesman, said he is not aware of how many teams restrict ticket sales to local fans. "There is no league policy that would prohibit it," he said.

Ticket industry officials said tickets are revocable licenses issued at the discretion of a team or venue.

Lawyers consulted by the Globe said such sales would be legal unless specifically prohibited . Excluding minorities or women from ticket purchases, for example, would raise legal problems because there are laws against discrimination of such groups.

Officials with the Patriots said they received a handful of complaints from fans about the Chargers' ticket restriction. Stacey James , the team spokesman, said the Patriots have never restricted ticket sales to their games.

"There's certainly logic to it," he said. "No team wants to fill their stadium with fans from the other team."

The only other option for Patriots fans wanting to see the game in San Diego is to buy tickets from a ticket reseller, but the prices are steep. Ace Ticket of Boston yesterday was selling $95 upper-level seats for $285. StubHub Inc. of San Francisco yesterday listed $95 end-zone upper-level seats for prices ranging from $214 to $295.

"Tickets are available. We have been getting lots of calls, and it seems to be a fair amount of Patriots fans are going to the game," said Jim Holzman , president of Ace.

Frank, the Patriots fan, said she doesn't think the hometown ticket restriction will do the Chargers any good because the Patriots play so well on the road. The team this season is 7-1 away from home.

Frank's prediction for Sunday? Patriots 35, Chargers 21.


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Suck my mother fucking DICK. I'm disgusted by ticketmaster allowing this. This is the beginning of something new for ticketmaster. Deals will be formed allowing for future discrimination.
The game is being held on their home turf. Do they honestly think the stadium will be over 50% Pats fans? C'mon, it's on the opposite side of the country!

What are you thoughts? Do you think ticketmaster benefits at all from this scheme? Will this move play a significant part in the outcome of the game?

well being the Pats fan I am...

FUCK THE BITCH ASS CHARGERS THEY'RE GOIN DOWN

I would think this might be an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce.

Plus, that's just bad business practice.

If they sell out, it doesn't matter for business.

I wouldn't want the Pats' fans in my stadium either.

actually the Chargers have always had a similar practice for the annual game against Oakland. For that one you HAVE to buy tickets to another game as well as the Oakland game.

True, but they won't do anything to Ticketbastard for this. They already get away with being a monopoly.

Ticketmaster also owns every single pro sports venue in the US. It doesn't matter if people like TM or not, they'll have to go through them eventually.

I suspect those laws haven't been revised to relfect the interweb economy.

The owners of the stadium are allowed to use their property however they see fit. If they want to only sell to SoCal, so be it.

Ticketmaster has nothing to do with Red Sox tickets. It's a lame rule, but I don't see how it's illegal.

I dont like ticketmaster, but i dont think this is their call...


and i dont see a problem with it at all. Hows it any different than selling tickets only at the box office?

so let me get this straight......


the chargers dont want pats fans in their stadium, so ticketmaster is behind all this?


i know this is a pearl jam board and all......

I may be reading the article wrong, but the difference it would seem is that a Pats fan could conceivably fly to SD early and buy tickets at the window if it were that important to him. This restriction is based on the zip code of the credit card billing address, so even if he were to stand on line in SD, he could be denied at the window.

I wonder, constitutionally, how this differs at all from a situation where an out-of-state person is charged more for a service than an in-state person.

Also, the monopoly analogy is not apt. Monopolies are not unconstitutional, they are illegal. Interference with interstate commerce is unconstitutional.

Isn't the interstate commerce act the single greatest justification for most Federal overreaches? Sure, it makes sense, but sometimes I wish it was a stick we hadn't given to Uncle Sam.

That is fantastic. I have no problem with it whatsoever, you can still get tickets from stub hub or razor gator but that's the way it should be everywhere. I love it.

Lots of college teams to it so they can sell out thier season tickets.

You can watch the game at home anyway or get them on Ebay.


My town has very few people from here anyway so there's always a lot of residents that are fans of other teams. I don't really care ultimately, but I love that a team would take that step to help achieve thier home field advantage.

What if you are a Chargers fan, but do not live in the right zip code? Should that person be forced to pay double the price?

well suppose they decide not to sell any tickets to any blacks or hispanics?

certainly they should be able to do that too

Well, that is certainly unconstituitional. But I don't believe it is unconstitutional not to sell tickets to people who reside in a certain area.