Patriots season ticket holders fear being put on hot seat

Season ticket holders of the New England Patriots reacted nervously yesterday to reports the team may take disciplinary action against fans who bought or sold tickets over the last five years on the online site StubHub Inc., while other sports fans praised the team for fighting back against scalpers.

The team obtained the names, addresses, and phone numbers of 13,000 individuals who bought or sold Patriots tickets or participated in a Patriots tickets auction on StubHub since 2002. StubHub, owned by eBay Inc., is an online marketplace for ticket buyers and sellers. The company was ordered to turn over the names to the Patriots by a Suffolk Superior Court judge as part of a lawsuit focused on whether the website was illegally encouraging fans to violate the team's policy against resales and the state's antiscalping law.

Patriots season ticket holders who sold tickets on StubHub have not yet heard what the team plans to do. To date, team officials have declined to say.

Diane, a season ticket holder who asked not to be identified for fear of being targeted by the Patriots, said she sold some of her seats on StubHub to help defray the cost of purchasing them.

"It's my ticket, and I should be able to do whatever I want with it," she said.

The Patriots view their tickets as revocable licenses that they control. The team currently prohibits resales anywhere but on the team's website, which is run by Ticketmaster and requires fans to sell their tickets at face value.

Mike, another season ticket holder who attempted to sell tickets on StubHub and requested anonymity, said he didn't appreciate the Patriots going to court to obtain private information about him.

But other sports fans applauded the Patriots for trying to prevent season ticket holders from making enormous profits on their tickets.

"Whatever happened to buying tickets for the games you want to go to, rather than buying them so that you can resell them and essentially price the average blue collar fan out of going to a game," said Sean Duke-Crocker of Brookline.

Gina Preziosi of Stoneham also praised the Patriots for setting rules and enforcing them. "After battling scalpers for years to get a decent Sox or concert ticket, only to find the scalpers miraculously have all the best seats, and watching our attorney general and law enforcement ignore the issue, I'm glad they are sticking up for the little guy," she said.

Bruce Mohl can be reached at mohl@globe.com.