Thanks to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, you can no longer pay cash for a ticket to many Massachusetts high school sports playoff games.
That’s because the MIAA handles ticketing for its postseason tournament games, and the state’s high school athletic governing body requires people to purchase tickets to these games on a smartphone app called GoFan (and its web site).
“All tickets must be purchased online at GoFan.co (with the exception of tickets for events at Tsongas Center & TD Garden),” the MIAA’s winter sports tournament ticket information web page says.
(Although that looks like a misprint, the web site is correct. The web site is GoFan.co, rather than GoFan.com.)
The MIAA first announced its no-cash policy during the 2021-2022 school year. The policy has been in place ever since.
“MIAA is making the transition to mobile ticketing which provides the safest, easiest, and most convenient method of entry to MIAA tournament events,” the MIAA’s announcement during the 2021-2022 school year said. “Tickets for games beginning with the ‘Round of 16’ will be sold exclusively online via GoFan.”
The rule does not apply to the preliminary round and Round of 32 playoff games. However, it applies to all games in the subsequent rounds. That window includes every MIAA football playoff game.
Massachusetts state law prohibits cash discrimination. Here is what the law says:
No retail establishment offering goods and services for sale shall discriminate against a cash buyer by requiring the use of credit by a buyer in order to purchase such goods and services. All such retail establishments must accept legal tender when offered as payment by the buyer.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell has reiterated her support for this law.
“Cash has to be accepted everywhere. And so we’re actively reviewing this. Obviously, some things happened before I got into office,” Campbell said on GBH Radio’s Boston Public Radio on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, according to State House News Service.
Campbell said this when asked a question about “cashlessness” from co-host Margery Eagan.
Eagan told Campbell that listeners had texted in examples of places where they had tried to pay cash, but had been denied, including Baystate Medical Center, UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the Boston Calling music festival.
During the interview, Campbell said those listeners should file complaints with her office.
When informed of the cashless policy from the MIAA, a press spokesman for Campbell’s office told NewBostonPost in an email message this week “Thanks, we’ll look into this for you.”
Additionally, Philip G. Carme, a resident of Sunderland, Massachusetts, criticized the policy in a letter to the editor in The Greenfield Recorder on July 6, 2023. (The original published version of the letter has certain words in parentheses, quoted below.)
“The MIAA continues discrimination, now entering its second year,” Carme wrote. “This is done by allowing the purchase of event tickets (high school state playoffs) through online method only (no cash gate offered). Thus eliminating the opportunity of any person who has no access to a computer device, like the elderly population (grandparents).”
“Why not have both online and cash sales at the gate and give a lower price for online ticket purchases?” he added. “There is and should be total access to all. Don’t shut us out simply because we don’t have or want access to modern technology. Let’s keep it simple, please.”
A spokesman for the MIAA could not be reached for comment on Thursday or Friday.
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