Zeal For Truth

Ticket scalping has been a tricky issue. Most people don’t have a problem with reselling something bought in the open, legal market. However, start making a lot of profit, and things can get ugly.

The Myth of Unfairly High Prices
We have to remember that the price of any good or service is set by supply and demand and it is in the best interest of both the seller and the buyer for the price to ensure the best distribution. For example, if you Rose Bowl tickets were $5 a pop, they would sell out in a minute and a lot of die-hard fans won’t get to go. However, as the price increases, those people who most desire to go will still pay more for the ticket - this is basic human action.

Do the poor people griping about their basketball season ticket prices really think they would still be able to get tickets if the costs went down, while demand was soaring? Do they not realize that the hordes of people jumping at cheap tickets would mow them over and likely leave them out of watching any games?

In fact, the higher prices are the most fair. But too high, of course, and no one can afford them. So the happy medium is the highest price that still ensures that everyone who really wants to go can go.

What needs to happen is for the venues themselves to charge a higher price (as the scalping profits are an indicator that the prices are too low) so that the extra profits go back to the venue and can be used for seat expansion, etc.. so that more people will be able to watch.

The Nostalgia Myth
I suspect, like most of us, it’s the general increase in the cost of sports that is bothersome - and I agree, it’s sad that it costs $80 a ticket to see a football game anymore - but that’s what we pay for all the marketing, new stadiums, new uniforms, practice facilities and the like. Advocating laws or price controls on scalping is the wrong move, and will be far more destructive. We need to re-examine, as individuals, our own sense of entitlement and realize that maybe we don’t have a God-given right to watch football or a concert for less than $80.

The Monopoly Myth
The second problem that the advocates of intervention into the ticket-selling market have, is not so much with the profit, but the fact that programs have been created that suck the venues dry of tickets within a few minutes. The scalpers then have a “monopoly” on the tickets. But this is ignorant of basic economic law. It’s not like scalpers are putting a gun to someone and making them buy a $500 ticket.

Besides, didn’t the venue originally have the same “monopoly” if not more so? Why didn’t they jack the price up? Heck, doesn’t a monopoly mean you can sell tickets for as much as you want and get away with it? Well no. At some point, people really don’t care to go see Notre Dame play Air Force for $400.

Venues Have the Power to Stop Scalping
Again, if the venues would price the ticket accurately in the first place, there would be no incentive or profit to buying them up en masse. This whole situation exists because there is dissonance between what the public thinks it should pay for tickets and what the ticket are actually worth with respect to economic law and supply and demand. It’s a classic case of the law of unintended consequences.

The scalpers have extra costs in researching and running their programs on top of what the venues already build in the price. Until the venue price chips into that, there will be scalpers using such programs. It’s unfortunate and sad, but it is the nature of the market if venues don’t increase their prices.

Ticket scalping programs will go away overnight if venues just raised their prices enough to cut into the profit margins of the scalpers. Heck, it’s in their best interest to do so.