Chicago White Sox fans allege discriminatory ticketing policies at Guaranteed Rate Field for ADA in lawsuit

Since the current Guaranteed Rate Field opened in 1991, Douglas McCormick has been a fixture in the stands.

A fan since childhood, McCormick attended 25 to 35 Chicago White Sox games a year for nearly three decades. He also worked for the scaffolding company contracted by the team when the stadium was built.

But since 2019, when McCormick began using a scooter in the stadium for his mobility disability, he says he’s faced discrimination when purchasing accessible tickets. The Sox would not sell season tickets in accessible seats, he said in a Wednesday news release.

“Imagine helping in the construction of the home stadium for your team and being told you can’t buy season tickets to go to games there,” McCormick said in the news release. “Well, that’s exactly what the White Sox told me after decades of supporting them.”

On Wednesday, McCormick, along with former AARP regional vice president and fellow Sox fan Ralph Yaniz, filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status against the Sox. McCormick and Yaniz are alleging that the team’s current ticketing practices around accessible seating violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Yaniz and McCormick are represented by three lawyers from Much Shelist P.C., a Chicago law firm with a history of disability rights cases, and one from Access Living, a social advocacy nonprofit focused on disability rights.

The lawsuit alleges that the team discriminates against individuals with disabilities by blocking sales of accessible seats, even “(d)uring a season where the White Sox have been historically bad and large swaths of seats at the ballpark remain empty.”

The four-person legal team filed the suit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, taking the allegations straight to a federal level. The suit specifically requests a jury trial.

In a statement to the Tribune, the White Sox described accessible seating at Guaranteed Rate Field as “significant.” The team claims to comply with all legal requirements, said team spokesperson Scott Reifert.

“We are disappointed by this lawsuit as the White Sox always hope to accommodate the needs of all our fans at the ballpark,” the Sox told the Tribune. “We strongly believe that White Sox baseball is for everyone.”

But the suit alleges that the Sox do not currently offer season tickets for accessible seats online. It also alleges that not all accessible seats in the stadium are offered at every game.

Forty-four of the 63 sections on the lower deck of Guaranteed Rate Field have wheelchair-accessible seats. Of 36 upper-deck sections, six include accessible seating.

“Disabled people deserve to enjoy the same passions as everyone else, and federal law has made this clear when it comes to public accommodations,” Steven Blonder, a principal at Much Shelist and one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in the news release.

Before the Sox fell out of playoff contention this year, Yaniz and McCormick allege in the lawsuit, accessible seats were mostly limited to the outfield and upper deck.

“Many of the existing accessible seats remained empty during games throughout the season,” the suit reads.

Yaniz, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair for mobility, alleges in the suit that wheelchair-accessible seats along the first and third base line — where prices are low and shade is provided — were kept out of reach by White Sox ticketing practices.

In the suit, Yaniz says he bought accessible season tickets over the phone in 2021 but was blocked from doing so in 2022.

Yaniz alleges he was told some accessible seats are held back so they can be included in other types of ticket packages.

In the suit, McCormick points out that current limits on accessible seating makes it hard for people with disabilities to consider their own comfort when buying tickets.

Accessible sections of Guaranteed Rate Field vary widely in size, shade, concessions and distance to accessible bathrooms, the suit reads.

Plaintiff’s lawyers are asking the district court to order the Sox to change their ticketing practices while awaiting trial, by putting accessible season tickets up for sale and listing all available accessible seats for sale online.

This isn’t the first time Chicago sports fans with disabilities have played ball with the courts. In 2017, then-20-year-old Chicago Cubs fan David Cerda sued the Cubs over a 2014 renovation project that eliminated some accessible seating in Wrigley Field’s right field bleachers.

Cerda alleged that the billion-dollar, five-year project cut down on accessible seating and left the remaining sections isolated, with worse views.

The Cubs won the suit after a weeklong trial in April 2023. U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso described Cerda’s situation as “unfortunate,” the Tribune reported. However, Alonso found the 210 accessible seats at Wrigley kept the stadium within ADA guidelines. The stadium needed at least 209 to pass.