A Warriors fan snuck into courtside seats all season for just $100 per month in clever scheme

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A Warriors fan snuck into courtside seats all season for just $100 per month in clever scheme

Oracle Arena

MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images / Getty Images

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  • Golden State Warriors fan Trevor Laub photoshopped his "In The Building" pass to sit courtside during most home games during the 2018-19 season.
  • The "In The Building" pass was a new ticket plan during the season that let fans pay $100 per month to get into the Oracle Arena and watch the game from the bars and restaurants on televisions. The fans had no view of the court itself. 
  • Laub said he came up with the plan due to real fans being "priced out." 
  • He posted a YouTube video detailing how he did it with footage that could be used against him if the Warriors were to take legal action.
  • Visit Business Insider's home page for more stories.

Golden State Warriors fan Trevor Laub discovered a way to sit courtside for nearly every home game during the 2019 season and it involved a new ticket plan. 

In November 2018, it was announced that the Warriors were releasing a new ticket plan, which is called the "In The Building" pass. The pass cost $100 per month to get into the Oracle Arena for every home game with no view of the court itself. 

Instead, fans had access to the bars and restaurants in the arena to watch the game on televisions.

Laud, who purchased this monthly subscription-like ticket, found a way to cheat the system and secure a courtside seat to nearly every game by photoshopping the mobile ticket. 

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"In The Building" pass tickets were sent out three hours prior to the game. This allowed Laud to see what seats were still available on Ticketmaster, choose one, and alter the ticket using Adobe After Effects to reflect a new seat before saving it to his phone. 

To get into the arena, he would use the "Club 200" ticket that every pass-holder receives, which includes the barcode that would be scanned at the entrance gate. Once in the arena, security no longer looks for a barcode and simply checked the seat number - even for Courtside Club tickets, which averaged between $605 and $905 at face value throughout the 2018-19 season. 

That amount doesn't come close to the $70,000 price-point tickets to Game 6 of the NBA Finals were being sold at, nor does it represent the price fans had to pay in a secondary market like StubHub.

When the season ended, instead of keeping the scheme to himself, Laub posted the footage to his YouTube channel and detailed how he pulled it off. He mentioned that this tactic also worked for two playoff games and he would be posting a video about that soon.

The video, which has over 180,000 views, gained traction once it was posted by Bleacher Report and on Reddit, which prompted Laub to post a follow-up video.

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He addressed comments that said he would be banned from going to future Warriors games and that the video is evidence of him committing a felony.

"I guess the Warriors could [sue me] if they wanted to and if they did we would handle it privately," Laub said in the video. "But, personally, I think they should be thanking me for exposing a huge flaw in their system and security.

"They can take this video, go back to the drawing board, draw out better security measures, especially that they're going to be in a new stadium."

Laub said the reason he came up with the plan was that he felt real fans were being "priced out" by the Warriors, which is something former Warrior Andre Iguodala has addressed. 

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A representative for the Warriors told Business Insider that the organization had no comment on the situation. 

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