Californians Not Allowed to Buy Tickets to Blazers Playoff Game Against Golden State

Warriors fans looking to gloat at the Moda Center tonight will face a challenge: The Trail Blazers aren't letting Californians buy playoff tickets.

If you're a California resident and try to purchase tickets to the Blazers playoff game this evening, your order likely won't go through.

According to the Ticketmaster page, sales to tonight's game "will be restricted to residents of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Residency will be based on credit card billing address."

If you do try to order them, the site says the order will be "canceled without notice and refunds given."

"This happens in the NBA regularly," Blazers spokesperson Michael Lewellen tells WW. "Teams do that a lot with managing certain inventory, especially with high profile games in the playoffs."

Lewellen went on to explain why the policy is not exclusionary.

"It's allowing fans to have the first opportunity to support their home team," he says. "That's not an unusual practice in professional sports. Fans in the market of the team have the first opportunity to purchase tickets."

The policy, called "geo-fencing," is set by Trail Blazers vice president of Ticket Sales & Service Tyler Howell.

"The essential purpose is to make sure our fans can buy tickets at reasonable prices. With big events, you start to see a lot of fraud. Most of those addresses tend to be out of state," he says.

Howell explains that the policy is only in effect for high-profile games, and if you're a California resident who's been to a Blazers game before, you still have access to pre-sale tickets.

"But if the first game you want to go to is a playoff game, that'll be a bit more of a challenge," he says.