Buddies offside? Get Jets pre-nup

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This article was published 17/04/2012 (5206 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Jets tickets have become more precious to some fans than family heirlooms or other prized possessions.

While the honeymoon surrounding the return of the NHL continues — even with the team missing the playoffs in its inaugural season — some of the good vibrations among the fan base have already evaporated as disputes over ticket ownership have erupted.

The vast majority of the 15,004 seats at the MTS Centre are shared among groups of various sizes but what happens if one member falls out of favour with the others, gets divorced, moves away, dies or — even worse — jumps on another team’s bandwagon?

Lawsuit, anybody?

That’s why Adam Herstein, a partner at Pitblado LLP, came up with a checklist of items for fans to create their own ticket-holders agreement, available on the firm’s website. He said ticket disputes flared up all season long but interest in hammering out formal arrangements has really picked up in the last month. While this might seem excessive to some, he said it’s essentially the same process any business partners would go through.

“You’re sharing tickets, money is being exchanged and just because the Jets are awesome doesn’t make this any different in terms of a business relationship,” he said.

Because True North Sports & Entertainment gave Manitoba Moose season-ticket holders first dibs on Jets tickets last June, those fans can wield significant power over others in their group, he said.

“Everybody wants to be the ticket holder, that’s the moral of the story and that’s the best position to be in, quite frankly. True North knows the ticket holder,” Herstein said.

The more people in the group, the more potential problems can crop up, said Chris Helgason, who shares four 200-level tickets with seven buddies. Because the tickets are in such high demand, all eight of them have considered a multitude of “crazy” scenarios that could negatively impact them.

“If a guy’s company is in trouble, what happens to his Jets tickets? If a guy get divorced, could his wife get half of his tickets? If somebody loses his job and he needs money, does he sell his tickets back to the group? You think about things you normally wouldn’t think about,” he said.

Staying onside with True North’s strict ticket rules, especially the ban on scalping, is top of mind for Helgason, whose group intends on keeping their ducats “for life.”

“We’re trying to protect the future of the seats,” he said.

One of their rules will be an absolute ban on posting any tickets for sale on Kijiji or other online sites.

“If you’re trying to make a quick $1,000 with two tickets, you could jeopardize the (ownership of the) seats for all of the other guys in the group,” he said.

That has everybody wondering what’s going on if they go to a game and they don’t recognize the people sitting beside them. This happened on more than one occasion when tickets were given to other friends or family and it wasn’t communicated to the entire group.

“You think, ‘Who are these people, they’re supposed to be my buddies. Where did you get those tickets?’ ” he said.

Putting it all down on paper allows groups of fans to discuss things on the front end before anything contentious comes up, Herstein said, and would go a long way to protecting everybody’s individual interests.

“If (a dispute) did go to court and you had an agreement that said it supersedes any oral discussions or things written down on a cocktail napkin, I think it would hold a lot of sway. Assuming everybody went into it with their eyes open, I don’t see how a court could ignore it,” he said.

This checklist wasn’t just meant to deal with Jets tickets, it could also apply to other season-ticket arrangements, Herstein said. It could certainly have applications this upcoming football season as some Blue Bombers games could be played in Canad Inns Stadium while others will be played at the still-under-construction Investors Group Field.

“If you were sharing ballet tickets, you could use this checklist,” he said.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca

Plenty to

consider for season-ticket holders

 

IT’S the sporting equivalent of a pre-nuptial agreement. If you’re looking to formalize the ownership of your Winnipeg Jets tickets, here are a few questions to consider:

 

— How long will the agreement last?

— Will everybody pay an equal share?

— Can the primary purchaser withhold tickets until payment has been made?

— How will everybody select the games they’ll be seeing?

— If somebody can’t go to a game, should they be required to offer their tickets first to somebody else in the ownership group?

— What if somebody wants to exit the agreement?

— Should you have a clause that would allow you to decide whether to buy playoff tickets in future years?

— Should you have an inheritance clause?

 

— Source: Pitblado LLP