Update, 4/14/20: The Nationals sent an email to season ticket plan holders on April 13 notifying them that their April payment, originally due this week, would be deferred until July, reported the Washington Post. “This is an unprecedented situation – one many of us could never have imagined,” the team wrote. “We continue to stay in close contact with MLB about the 2020 season. Until there is further guidance, we will postpone the April 15th Nat for Life Payment to July 15th.”

A spokesperson for the team did not immediately respond to DCist’s request for comment on whether other tickets would be eligible for refunds or exchanges.

Original: 

Jim Turner was looking forward to the start of baseball season. As he’d done in past years, the Bethesda resident sprang for season tickets to see the Washington Nationals, pooling money with a group of four other guys to purchase four tickets to 22 games. Some he planned to distribute as a reward to staff at his IT company, Hilltop Consultants, where he is the CEO, and some he would reserve for taking clients to games.

He also planned to take his 11-year-old son, who has recently gotten into baseball, to a game or two. “We’re coming off of a World Series,” says Turner of the Nats’ championship win last year. “It was going to be an exciting year.”

But last month, when Major League Baseball announced it was canceling the remainder of spring training games and would delay the start of the season due to coronavirus concerns, Turner wondered what he should do next.

He reached out to the friend of a friend who had purchased the tickets for the group through the Nats box office, but the acquaintance hadn’t received any word from the organization about how to proceed. Because Turner’s name wasn’t on the tickets, he decided to reach out to the Nationals and MLB via Twitter, but got no response.

With baseball on hold, Turner is one of many Nationals fans who are stuck in limbo. Some fans have reported not being able to reach the Nats, the box office, or MLB to figure out what their options are.

A number of ticket holders have voiced their concerns online. One user on Reddit wrote Monday that they spent $700 on 2 tickets for 10 games and had received no information from the Nats on what to do. “Due to what’s going on, I need my $700 a lot more than I need Nats tickets for a season that might not happen,” they wrote.

On Twitter, a user with the handle @EricNHouse, tweeted at the team last week, saying he had canceled his trip to D.C. to see the Nats play the Chicago Cubs in April, and asked them to respond to an email he’d sent. Other users echoed those sentiments.

A spokesperson for the Nats tells DCist that they are not sure whether an email has been sent to ticket holders, but that the team is waiting for MLB to settle on a new schedule before making any decisions about refunds for regular season games. They added that staff is monitoring all voicemail and email inboxes, and is making updates online.

An FAQ section on the Nats’ website advises fans to hang on to their tickets, and says the team will share more information as it becomes available. According to the site, the box office is closed, and most employees are working remotely. Meanwhile, chef José Andrés’ charity World Central Kitchen has moved into the stadium’s kitchens to cook meals for low-income families in D.C.

The Nats aren’t the only local team figuring out next steps as they go. Some fans with tickets to Capitals and Wizards games have also raised questions about refunds.

A representative for Monumental Sports tells DCist that the organization has been in touch with season ticket holders for the Capitals, Wizards, and Mystics “nonstop.” For those who pay monthly, Monumental gave the option of deferring their April payment. Games are suspended for the time being, and the organization will determine how to proceed with single-game refunds if they are cancelled, the spokesperson says.

The representative also noted that third-party sellers like StubHub and Ticketmaster have their own policies regarding refunds.

If the Nats’ games are going to be rescheduled, Turner says, he’d like to know so he can plan accordingly. Otherwise, he’d like his money back. His share cost around $10,000, money he says he could use to cover other expenses, particularly given the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic. “$10,000 would be doing me much more good as a small business [owner] back in my bank account, meeting payroll and whatever else right now, because it’s tough on a business,” he says.

Out-of-towners have been impacted, too. Suzi Sullivan, a 59-year-old community volunteer in Knoxville, Tennessee, and her husband had planned to travel to West Palm Beach, Florida, near where their daughter lives, to see the Nats play the Houston Astros during spring training in March. But after seeing MLB’s announcement, they postponed their trip.

Sullivan had purchased their three tickets, which cost roughly $160, through the box office at FITTEAM Ballpark, where the teams were set to play, but never received an email or any information from the park on how to proceed after the games were cancelled. When she tried calling, an answering machine asked her to enter an extension, which she didn’t know. “You just can’t get through to a live person,” she says.

A revised ticket policy on the MLB website states that ticket holders for single spring training games will receive automatic refunds to their credit card within eight weeks, but Sullivan was never notified of that. She received her refund on Tuesday, about a month after MLB made its announcement. FITTEAM Ballpark did not immediately respond to DCist’s request for comment.

The spokesperson for the Nats also told DCist that nearly all cancelled spring training games had been refunded, save the Astros’ first game, which got rained out and was processed separately. The spokesperson added that customers may receive their refunds at different times depending on their bank, and that the box office voicemail is checked regularly and calls are returned within one business day.

Sullivan grew up in Arlington and is a longtime Nats fan–her Tennessee license plate even says “Go Nats”–but she was frustrated by what she saw as a lack of communication throughout the refund process. Her husband, who works in corporate training for the truck rental company, Ryder, was recently furloughed, and the money is especially handy to have now. “I mean, that’s a week’s worth of groceries,” she says.

With reports circulating that MLB is considering having all 30 teams start the season playing to empty stadiums in Phoenix, Arizona, Turner is getting nervous.

“I realize that nobody has had to deal with this before,” he says, noting that there are a lot of unknowns for MLB to sort out. Still, he says, they should take the time to respond to ticket holders. “What they shouldn’t be doing is they shouldn’t go silent.”