As if you needed another reason to hate the Yankees …
Most New England baseball fans hoping to attend the Red Sox-Yankees Wild Card series in New York have been shut out of tickets on Ticketmaster per the orders of the Evil Empire. Ticketmaster is only selling playoff tickets to people living in New York and contiguous states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.
“Sales to this event will be restricted,” read a message on Ticketmaster’s website. “Orders by residents outside New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania will be canceled without notice and refunds given.”
Tickets to the game were available for as low as $75 on Ticketmaster, as of midday Tuesday. But any fan from Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, or Rhode Island who wants to attend the game will need to go to secondary sales sites such as StubHub, where tickets start at $200.
A spokesperson for Ticketmaster said the decision to limit ticket sales came from the Yankees management.
“Sometimes teams will place geographic restrictions on certain events to give local fans the best chance to attend,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The Yankees did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for the Red Sox said the team can’t speak to the policies at other venues, but the Sox “do not limit purchase eligibility at Fenway Park.” (John Henry, the principal owner of Fenway Sports Group and the Red Sox, is the owner of The Boston Globe.)
Sox fans can’t just wait for the team to come home to watch the playoff action. The Wild Card playoff format places the entire best-of-three series at the home field of the team with the higher seed. In this case, the three-game series will be held exclusively at Yankee Stadium.
Restricting ticket sales based on geography is not a new practice in professional sports, although it is rare. Similar restrictions have been imposed during NHL and NBA playoffs.
The Nashville Predators restricted ticket sales to local fans during the first round of the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs against the Vancouver Canucks (the Canucks won). The Detroit Pistons also put geographical restrictions on ticket sales during their NBA playoff series against the New York Knicks last spring (the Knicks won).
Toronto Blue Jays fans are already furious about the Yankees’ ticket policies. They are venting in online forums about the ticket restrictions as they look ahead to the Division Series, when their team, which finished first in the American League East, plays the Yankees-Red Sox winner.
It’s not hard to think of a solution to Toronto fans’ problem.
Yogev Toby can be reached at yogev.toby@globe.com.
