This is something they need to sort out before opening day.
In recent years, Major League Baseball has largely shifted to mobile ticketing. It’s no different than any other major event. The pandemic has accelerated this trend.
I’m not a big fan of it, despite its convenience (as long as I have my phone with me, I can’t forget my tickets). A paper ticket is a tangible memento of the event you attended, and I don’t think MLB (or other sports) really understands that.
Nevertheless, this ship has sailed.
I’m writing this article to tell you about an issue I’ve had this season with tickets in my MLB Ballpark app – specifically, regarding tickets sold by teams that use Ticketmaster as a source. Cubs use Tickets.com and all my season tickets for both Sloan Park and Wrigley Field are in the app, no problem. I use them for spring games at Sloan Park, as well as my seasonal parking passes in Mesa, with no problems. I had no problems using the Ballpark app at Wrigley last year.
Tickets for teams using Ticketmaster? Uh no. This is a major problem. Let me show you.
I bought tickets to see the Cubs play in Atlanta in September. The Braves use Ticketmaster. This is what it looks like in my ticket list on the app:
This seems normal. But when I click on “Show”, this is what I get:
Obviously, this is not optimal. (I “contacted customer service”, no one could figure out the problem.)
I’m using a Samsung Galaxy S22+ running Android version 13. I don’t know if this issue is exclusive to Samsung, or Android, or both, but I know it’s not an issue for iPhones, as I connected my partner. on my account on his iPhone and it works very well.
There are workarounds here. I can view these tickets using the Ticketmaster app, so if MLB and Ticketmaster don’t resolve this issue, I can still attend the games in Atlanta that way. I also purchased parking passes for these games directly from the Braves on the phone and…well, let’s just say the people involved get a link from the Braves, click the link on my phone’s browser and are loading these parking passes into my Google. Wallet.
None of this was friendly.
I’m not sure if this is an MLB issue with their app, or if it’s a Ticketmaster issue, or both. (Guess: both.) I know this seems to be limited to Android phones, or maybe it’s my particular phone model. I hope MLB and Ticketmaster figure this out before the 2023 regular season begins. Ticketmaster certainly has enough problems right now, with their fiasco surrounding the Taylor Swift concert tour.
If you have encountered similar issues with the Ballpark app, please post them in the comments. Or if you have an Android phone and are NOT having issues with similar tickets, let us know.
