MLB and Ticketmaster have a major problem with the Ballpark app

Over the last few years, Major League Baseball has gone to mobile ticketing in a big way. This isn’t any different than any other major event. The pandemic accelerated this trend.

I’m not a big fan of this, despite its convenience (as long as I have my phone with me, I can’t forget my tickets). A hard paper ticket is a tangible souvenir of the event you’ve attended, and I don’t think MLB (or other sports) really understands this.

Nevertheless, that ship has sailed.

I’m writing this article to tell you about an issue I’ve come across this season with tickets in my MLB Ballpark app — specifically, about tickets sold through teams that use Ticketmaster as their source. The Cubs use Tickets.com and all my season tickets, both for Sloan Park and Wrigley Field, are in the app, no problems. I’ve been using them for spring games at Sloan Park, as well as my season parking passes in Mesa, without any trouble. I had no problems using the Ballpark app at Wrigley last year.

Tickets for teams using Ticketmaster? Uh, nope. This is a major problem. Let me show you.

I have purchased tickets to see the Cubs play in Atlanta this September. The Braves use Ticketmaster. Here’s how that looks in my list of tickets on the app:

That looks normal. But when I click “View,” this is what I get:

Obviously, that’s not optimal. (I did “contact customer service,” no one could figure out the issue.)

I am 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 do know this is not a problem for iPhones, as I have logged my partner in to my account on her iPhone and it works just fine.

There are workarounds here. I can see these tickets using the Ticketmaster app, so if MLB and Ticketmaster don’t fix this issue I can still get into the games in Atlanta that way. I also bought some parking passes for those games directly from the Braves on the phone and... well, let’s just say getting those involved getting a link from the Braves, clicking the link on my phone browser and loading these parking passes into my Google Wallet.

None of this was user-friendly.

I don’t know if this is MLB’s issue with their app, or if this is a Ticketmaster problem, or both. (Guessing: Both.) I do know it appears 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, what with their fiasco surrounding Taylor Swift’s concert tour.

If you have seen similar issues with the Ballpark app, please post in the comments. Or if you have an Android phone and are NOT having trouble with similar tickets, also let us know.