San Francisco Giants open at home on March 25 against the Yankees. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

Eighty-one games. That’s how many home games there are in a baseball season. That’s a lot. Especially when you live three hours away from the ballpark.

Nonetheless, I took the leap this season to own a pair of tickets to each home game for the San Francisco Giants. My ticket group disbanded so I decided to jump in with both feet, hoping I didn’t just sink a bucket of cash into a frivolous endeavor.

I took the financial gamble eyes wide open. The looming question still to be answered is: Can I sell the tickets I don’t want to use?

I like knowing if the Giants make it to postseason, (still seems possible when spring training has barely begun) I have two tickets to each of those games. Not that I am likely to go to all of them; but I am sure those will be easy to sell. First preference will go to the peeps who bought tickets from me at the get-go. Though, I did sell to a Dodgers fan, so I might have to rethink postseason tickets for him.

After selling about one-third of the tickets to friends (and keeping ones I wanted, of course), I started putting them up on StubHub. Games through May are there that haven’t already been spoken for.

I’ve never bought nor sold anything on this site that launched in 2000. It doesn’t cost me anything per se to list games, though StubHub takes its share when the transaction is completed.

StubHub is getting a chunk of change from sellers and buyers. For instance, I have a pair of tickets listed for $80. The buyer sees them for sale at $98; so the buyer is paying $18 in fees. I will net $72; so I’m paying $8 for this transaction.

The ticket reselling site has pricing suggestions. If it’s in the sweet spot, “recommended” comes up, meaning they will be seen by people. Whereas if the price is higher than StubHub deems reasonable, the seller gets a “hidden” notification which means the seats are not readily visible to buyers.

What surprised me, and shouldn’t have, is I don’t get the money until five to eight days after the game is played, not after they are sold. My experience as an Airbnb host should have prepared me for this delay. The short-term house rental platform didn’t pay until the people checked out. So, same sort of process. This allows the middleman (StubHub, Airbnb and the like) to make even more money by sitting on all that cash before its doled out.

Another surprise, again it shouldn’t have been, is that I’m going to be taxed on profits as though this is income. If I make a lot of money ($20,000) in sales and I have more than 200 transactions, StubHub has to issue me a 1099-K. That would be a nice problem to have, but not one I am expecting this first year of being in the resell business.

Even so, maybe being a ticket reseller is a future retirement job.

For now though, if you want Giants tickets, I can easily take them off StubHub and sell them to you at my cost.