Suit over Ticketmaster sales dropped

A 49ers season- ticket holder who sued the team last year over its new restrictions on ticket resales quietly has dropped his suit, without saying why.

Amir Kazemzadeh of Santa Clara filed the proposed multimilliondollar class- action suit in federal court in August against the 49ers and Ticketmaster, the nation’s largest entertainment ticketing company. He accused them of engaging in unfair and monopolistic practices by requiring fans who want to sell single- game tickets more than 72 hours before kickoff to make those sales over Ticketmaster, with stiff fees for both seller and buyer.

After the 49ers and Ticketmaster sought dismissal of the suit, requests that a federal magistrate was scheduled to hear in March, Kazemzadeh dismissed it voluntarily Jan. 11, according to a court filing by his lawyers.

The dismissal was for “a reason I can’t get into,” his lead attorney, Abbas Kazerounian, said Tuesday. A 49ers spokesman and a lawyer for Ticketmaster both declined to comment.

The suit challenged the team’s policy, instituted for this season, of prohibiting ticket resales until 72 hours before game time unless the tickets were sold by the official NFL Ticket Exchange run by Ticketmaster. Both the 49ers and Ticketmaster denied that they were unfairly limiting sellers’ options.

A similar suit was filed against the Warriors in March by the ticket reseller StubHub, which claimed the team’s resale agreement with Ticketmaster was cheating StubHub and its customers. U. S. District Judge Maxine Chesney dismissed that suit in November. StubHub has appealed.