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New England Patriots Obtain Online Ticket Reseller Names
Billosaur writes "The New England Patriots sued on-line ticket re-seller StubHub (a subsidiary of eBay) to obtain the list of names of people who tried to buy or sell Patriots tickets using the service. StubHub lost an appeal in Massachusetts state court last week, and was compelled to hand over the list of 13,000 names. It is currently not clear what the Patriots organization intends to do with the names, but they have intimated that they may revoke the privileges of any season ticket holders on the list. The Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group, said the court order to turn over the names infringes on the privacy rights of Patriots fans. At issue is whether using the on-line service allows an end-run around team rules and Massachusetts state law, by allowing ticket holders to charge extreme mark-ups on their tickets." How does this ruling apply to other pieces of transient property?
under state law tickets can be resold just at a very low profit though "the team rules" forbid any resale. that is anti-competitive though hording tickets and selling them at 10x what they are worth isn't any better. don't feel sorry for either side, neither is correct- both are screwing people over.
so why should anyone have sympathy for organizations/individuals trying to profit from charity to society?
Charity? I don't think sports teams are being "charitable" per-se for selling tickets at under market rate.. they do it to enforce their brand and keep up the excitement in customers who can't get tickets due to overdemand and who will then try to fight for them next time.
They should just sell the damn things for market rate. I don't see beachside condos or Mercedes Benz cars being sold at under market simply to keep the proles happy.
And I don't see any car dealerships selling Maybach jerseys. There's a bigger market than just tickets, and it's overwhelmingly driven by the middle class. Make it impossible for blue collar fans to attend a game and you drive down merchandising opportunities elsewhere. The NFL already has what's mostly become an exclusively white collar event - it's called the Super Bowl.
I think scalping sucks too, but you really can't fight the market and pretend there isn't scarcity.
The issue is the fact that they are selling the tickets above the face value.
Why in the fuck else would people create a marketplace for the buying and selling of tickets if not to make profit on it?
I'm all for people being enterprising and making a little money - say 10% or at most 20% above face value. But anything over that is taking advantage of the fans, and preying on their obsessive love of the sports they love.
The same can be said for coin or comic book dealers. Does it matter that Action Comics #1 originally cost $0.10? If some dork is willing to pay $250,000 for it now, there's nothing wrong with selling it at that price.
What teams make in endorsements, broadcast rights and merchandising is so substantial that they're already taking advantage of the fans by charging $50.00 or whatever per ticket.
It's pure economics, when there is great demand for a product that is in limited supply, prices will rise. There were jackasses who paid $2,500 for Playstation 3 consoles because that was the only way they could get them. Should Sony have been able to sue to prevent people from reselling things that they legitimately bought? Why is that any worse than selling tickets at higher prices? What would be wrong with having an auction? If two people want the same ticket and are willing to bid against each other to buy them, why should the owner of the ticket be kept from allowing them to do so?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The fact is that the scalpers legally bought the tickets, so why may they not resell them? The only issue should be if they don't declare the income for tax purposes.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It's just the same as any other limited resource - it's just that that particular resource is limited enough that people can get a near-monopoly without significant investment. But in the end, its just the same as anything else - in fact, its the same thing we saw with the Playstation 3 earlier - limited supply, people grab up plenty, then flog em on eBay.
I don't really have any problem with pre-order limits, or conditions on tickets that invalidate them if they're not held by the purchaser, or any other sort of controls imposed by the retailer, within their authority. It's additional government controls that I don't particularly like.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face