Toronto Blue Jays: Am I able to get a ticket refund?

Many Blue Jays fans had their tickets purchased and ready to go for the 2020 season. Now that it’s on hold, are the Blue Jays issuing refunds?

It’s not a very fun time to be a business owner right now, whether you own a small ‘Ma & Pa’ shop that’s been forced to close because of the Coronavirus pandemic, or if you’re in charge of a big corporate entity.

Like the rest of Major League Baseball, the Blue Jays are stuck in limbo when it comes to the 2020 season that was supposed to begin almost a month ago, and the pause on life has trickled down to many different areas. Thankfully the Blue Jays announced that they are among the teams that are committed to paying their game-day staffers until the end of May, which is a great thing to see.

However, there were and even are some questions remaining about whether or not fans are able to get a refund on tickets they purchased for the season ahead. The official stance of Major League Baseball and ticket resellers like Ticketmaster is that the games are “postponed” at the moment rather than “cancelled”, which means they don’t have to issue an immediate refund, at least not until a resolution has been put in place. The whole situation has left several fans frustrated, which makes additional sense when you consider that there are many folks who have lost their jobs over the last month, and that ticket money could come in handy right about now.

Thankfully Mark Shapiro sat down with Gregor Chisholm of the Toronto Star earlier this week and offered a little bit of clarification, or at least what he can at the moment.

"“We have fielded every single call and whenever there has been a hardship, or a circumstance, that has necessitated a refund, we have refunded those tickets,” Shapiro said. “We will continue to receive those calls and continue to handle those calls very openly and with whatever approach a fan wants us to take. If a refund is important to them, we will refund them. We have not fought any of those and will continue to do that. We feel like we are very close to receiving information from the league that we need to develop a broader policy on refunds and exchanges.”"

Chisholm correctly points out that the Blue Jays have to be careful how they handle the situation until an official announcement comes from the league office. All MLB teams are going to have to work together to navigate this financial mess, and setting a precedent in Toronto before the rest of the league has sorted things out wouldn’t be helpful for the league as a whole.

That said, it sounds like if you call the Blue Jays ticket office and make your case, you’ll likely be successful. I’ve seen a few folks on Twitter already sharing that they’ve been able to get a refund, and I imagine the Blue Jays and the rest of the league will make an official announcement sooner than later.