Lightning restricting playoff ticket sales to Florida residents only
If you want to buy Tampa Bay Lightning playoff tickets, you better live in Florida.
By
Chris Peters
•
2 min read
The Tampa Bay Lightning are hoping for a deep playoff run after a hugely successful regular season. They're going to get home-ice at least in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, so they want to make sure that stays an advantage for the team. When the Lightning put their playoff tickets on sale Friday, those from outside the state of Florida may have had trouble making the purchase.
The Lightning are restricting sales to state residents. Any tickets purchased via credit card without a Florida address will be canceled and issued a refund without notice.
“We don’t feel the need to apologize for doing our best to create a home atmosphere for our season ticket members and our team,’’ team spokesman Bill Wickett said.
There's also this disclaimer on Ticketmaster regarding special sections within Amalie Arena:
Chase Club and Lexus Lounge ticket holders - please note that for all 2015 NHL Playoff Games at Amalie Arena, only Tampa Bay Lightning team logos will be permitted in these areas. Fans wearing visiting team logos will be asked to remove them while in the Chase Club and Lexus Lounge areas.
That seems a tad excessive, but "Because it's the Cup," right?
So what about Lightning fans that don't live in Florida? Wickett explained that those fans won't be frozen out, they just have to take some extra steps. As for the logos in the team's clubs, there won't be any budging on the clothing restrictions.
“Of course we’re going to sell them tickets,” Wickett insisted. He said fans from out-of-state can call the team directly to get help with playoff tickets. But the logo restriction in the private areas stems from fan feedback, and the team is responding.
“We want to let our season ticket members drive what happens in those clubs,” Wickett said. “They like those clubs to remain for Lightning fans.”
So much for sportsmanship.
This kind of ticket policy is not unprecedented in the NHL. In previous years, the Nashville Predators and St. Louis Blues have each taken aim at keeping Chicago Blackhawks fans out of their building for regular season games. Both teams made it so that home games against the Blackhawks could not be purchased on a single-game basis, but as part of packages including other games not featuring the Blackhawks.
Neither effort worked all that well.
As far as the Lightning are concerned, it’s an interesting tactic to try to boost home-ice advantage at the most crucial time of the year. This probably helps the secondary ticket sales market more than anything else, though.
The Lightning’s ownership group has done a lot in recent years to revamp Amalie Arena, with major renovations and upgrades like their gigantic scoreboard and massive pipe organ. Not only that, but the product on the ice has vastly improved under the stewardship of general manager Steve Yzerman.
The Lightning perhaps can feel bolder about putting together a ticket policy such as this as they currently rank ninth in the NHL in attendance, averaging 18,803 fans per game.
