LooGie Posted October 19, 2007 Share Posted October 19, 2007 We've heard plenty of stories about organizations trying to ban the resale of tickets to events. It seems a bit silly to tell someone who bought a ticket to a concert or a sporting event that they're not allowed to resell it, but apparently some event organizers feel differently -- especially when the tickets are sold at greater than face value. The New England Patriots apparently are so adamant that people shouldn't be reselling their tickets for profit that they've convinced a court to force ticket resale marketplace StubHub to hand over the names of everyone who resold Patriots tickets for above face value. This seems like a rather large privacy violation -- and it clearly violates Stubhub's own terms of service (which is why the company fought it in court). You could understand being forced to turn over such information in a criminal lawsuit, but this is the New England Patriots requesting and getting the private info of sellers. For a team that just got into some trouble for spying on opposing teams, spying on their fans' private transactions doesn't seem like a step forward. I dont get this. It's a joke, and this judge has lost his damn mind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caveman_Nick Posted October 19, 2007 Share Posted October 19, 2007 I dont get this. It's a joke, and this judge has lost his damn mind Not if there is an agreement when the tickets are originally sold that the buyer agrees not to resell them above face value. The person with the tickets would then be violating that agreement and subject to legal action. This strikes me as similar to the type of law surrounding the licensing of software. I will have to look at my tickets and see of there is this kind of agreement printed on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piratesownninjas Posted October 19, 2007 Share Posted October 19, 2007 They want there season ticket holders to go to games, not price gouge. They're doing the right thing, maybe you need to get over the ring envy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bushey Posted October 19, 2007 Share Posted October 19, 2007 Robert Kraft can kiss my A$$. They are already making a fortune at the gate and concessions. If a few want to sell their tickets and someone is willing to pay it, then so be it. This has been going on for as long as sports have been around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted October 19, 2007 Share Posted October 19, 2007 They want there season ticket holders to go to games, not price gouge. They're doing the right thing I don't know about that. I've always seen scalpers as the lowest form of life, but they do perform a service - getting those who DON'T have tickets into an event they obviously wish desperately to see. When I see an NFL team doing this, I generally take it as they don't want someone making $x off what they charged $x/3 for - "that margin should be OURS, dammit!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LooGie Posted October 19, 2007 Author Share Posted October 19, 2007 They want there season ticket holders to go to games, not price gouge. They're doing the right thing, maybe you need to get over the ring envy. i gotta say, you really just pissed me off. This has nothing to do with "ring envy". People buying tickets are being assured that their personal information wont be released, and a court decides the Patriots are more important than that thought process and thousands' of people's privacy. So get a clue, learn some law, and dont bother running your mouth unless you're going to contribute. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleeping King Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 i gotta say, you really just pissed me off. This has nothing to do with "ring envy". People buying tickets are being assured that their personal information wont be released, and a court decides the Patriots are more important than that thought process and thousands' of people's privacy. So get a clue, learn some law, and dont bother running your mouth unless you're going to contribute. You really need to do some reseach. This is all about season ticket holders selling their tickets for far more than face value. If you sell a ticket for anything over $2 of the face value then you have broken the law. This is not just a Patriot thing. All owners want the season tickets they sell to be used by the people buying them. Let me give you an example of how out of control Patriots tickets are. I have been on the waiting list for season tickets for years. I am still a loooong way from the top. So every year I try to buy individual tickets when they go on sale. Every year they sell out the entire season in less than 3 minutes. So of course you have to go to a ticket broker, ie Stubhub. The last game I went to at Foxborough I bought SRO (Standing Room Only) tickets that have a $10 face value. Guess what I had to pay? $275. I just paid $250 to go to the Patriots-Cowboys game and they were $82 tickets. You can take this a lot further when you bring in the insane prices parents are paying for Hannah Montana tickets. Bottom line if you get season tickets you need to go to the game or sell them to a friend. I applaud Bob Kraft for trying to get a grip on an out of control situation. He has every right to revoke the season tickets of the people who are doing this. He owns the team he should do what is right for his fans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 Let me give you an example of how out of control Patriots tickets are. I have been on the waiting list for season tickets for years. I am still a loooong way from the top. So every year I try to buy individual tickets when they go on sale. Every year they sell out the entire season in less than 3 minutes. So of course you have to go to a ticket broker, ie Stubhub. The last game I went to at Foxborough I bought SRO (Standing Room Only) tickets that have a $10 face value. Guess what I had to pay? $275. I just paid $250 to go to the Patriots-Cowboys game and they were $82 tickets. So? You obviously could afford the $275 and found the trade of dollars-for-goods to be reasonable. Otherwise, why would you pay that? Bottom line if you get season tickets you need to go to the game or sell them to a friend. I applaud Bob Kraft for trying to get a grip on an out of control situation. He has every right to revoke the season tickets of the people who are doing this. He owns the team he should do what is right for his fans. Scalping will NEVER go away. And I can tell you that as a Green Bay fan, I don't have a shot at season tickets and VERY RARELY have them fall into my lap (like, twice in ten years). If I wish to go to a game, I have to pay top dollar. And I just don't consider 3 hours a fair trade for 150-ish dollars of my money. So I don't go to games. Why do you hate the free market? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czarina Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 I guess this is a big deal this week because the Pats went after StubHub, but they've taken this position for years. It's nothing new. : Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleeping King Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 So? You obviously could afford the $275 and found the trade of dollars-for-goods to be reasonable. Otherwise, why would you pay that? Scalping will NEVER go away. And I can tell you that as a Green Bay fan, I don't have a shot at season tickets and VERY RARELY have them fall into my lap (like, twice in ten years). If I wish to go to a game, I have to pay top dollar. And I just don't consider 3 hours a fair trade for 150-ish dollars of my money. So I don't go to games. Why do you hate the free market? I pay bloated prices for the tickets because I am either insane or retarded. It is not a free market. There are laws against selling your tickets over face value. It is illegal. I have been fortunate enough that I could afford to go but if money was continuously tight which a lot of people can relate with then it would suck to not be able to go to a game. I'm not sure how anyone can complain about an owner wanting his tickets to be sold for the prices they were intended to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 I'm not sure how anyone can complain about an owner wanting his tickets to be sold for the prices they were intended to be. Well, what other "good" (event tickets don't quite qualify as a "service" IMO) are you forbidden from re-selling at a higher price, if that is what the market bears? Stocks? Houses? Blenders? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMD Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 How can they know if a season ticket holder gave it to a family member who then sold it? I thought the ticket was being sold to reserve a seat in the stadium and that is all, not be a personal license for someone to go to a game. It will never, ever go away no matter what you try to do because there is money in it just the same as the teams themselves sell luxury boxes for exorbitant fees. It's all just money and it is going to happen unfortunately. No NFL team approves of scalping and it is outright illegal in some states. But it will always be there sadly enough. Unless you start selling stadium tickets like airplane tickets where you must prove who you are before you can go in, then it will always happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keggerz Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 i will sell you my ticket at face value but there is going to be a convenience charge of $100....that is because you have the convenience of not having to buy season tickets and lay out as much cash as i did Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
byron2112 Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 I don't really get the whole thing about clubs keeping their season ticket holders from making a buck. The teams are gouging their season ticket holders for usless pre-season games at full price, so I don't really see how they get off acting like they're standing for fairness or anything like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gdawg Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 There is no metion of Right to Privacy in the Constitution. Read it, there is none. Having stated the above, I am not familiar with the "contract" between season-ticket holders and NFL teams. If they are barred in some way from selling their tickets to a 3rd party, I don't have a problem with it. If they ARE NOT, well, that's another whole can of worms. Of course, there is the whole scalping issue, be it by proxy or no. It is an interesting question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleeping King Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 How can they know if a season ticket holder gave it to a family member who then sold it? I thought the ticket was being sold to reserve a seat in the stadium and that is all, not be a personal license for someone to go to a game. It will never, ever go away no matter what you try to do because there is money in it just the same as the teams themselves sell luxury boxes for exorbitant fees. It's all just money and it is going to happen unfortunately. No NFL team approves of scalping and it is outright illegal in some states. But it will always be there sadly enough. Unless you start selling stadium tickets like airplane tickets where you must prove who you are before you can go in, then it will always happen. The problem is not the average fan who wants to go to 2 games and sell the other 6 for profit. The problem is that these season tickets are not going to fans. Ticket scalping agencies have a stranglehold on season tickets. They buy season tickets with the only motive of making money. You can try to compare this to houses, blenders and stocks all you want but I daytrade for a living and it is perfectly legal way of making money. Ticket scalping on the other hand is against the law. And I do agree that scalping has/is/and will go on forever but that does not mean that Kraft taking 5-10,000 season tickets out of ticket agencies hands and into actual fans hands is not an important start to getting things under control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outshined Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 Minnesota passed a bill to legalize scalping this year. Part of the article from the strib. Only 9 states have laws against scalping.... Kahn said the old law represented "the worst kind of socialist interference with the free market." Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said the governor plans to sign the bill, which would legalize ticket brokering on street corners, the Internet and almost anywhere in between on Aug. 1. During a brief debate on the House floor, a few legislators said that a wide-open ticket market would drive up prices and exclude all but the wealthy from must-see events. DeLaForest countered that more legal competition could bring some ticket prices down. And scalping laws haven't capped soaring street prices for high-demand tickets, he said. "The market is the market," he said. "That's the bottom line. The law's not enforceable." That's become increasingly apparent with the growth of online ticket brokerages, including Ticket King of Hudson, Wis., whose co-owner, a St. Paul resident, has expressed a desire to move the business to Minnesota once it's legal. Wisconsin is among 41 states where scalping is allowed, DeLaForest said. Repeal, he said, will put Minnesota's ticket market on the same terms as most other areas of the economy. "We don't talk about scalping real estate or artwork or stocks and bonds or even baseball cards," he said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleeping King Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 Minnesota passed a bill to legalize scalping this year. Part of the article from the strib. Only 9 states have laws against scalping....Kahn said the old law represented "the worst kind of socialist interference with the free market." Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said the governor plans to sign the bill, which would legalize ticket brokering on street corners, the Internet and almost anywhere in between on Aug. 1. During a brief debate on the House floor, a few legislators said that a wide-open ticket market would drive up prices and exclude all but the wealthy from must-see events. DeLaForest countered that more legal competition could bring some ticket prices down. And scalping laws haven't capped soaring street prices for high-demand tickets, he said. "The market is the market," he said. "That's the bottom line. The law's not enforceable." That's become increasingly apparent with the growth of online ticket brokerages, including Ticket King of Hudson, Wis., whose co-owner, a St. Paul resident, has expressed a desire to move the business to Minnesota once it's legal. Wisconsin is among 41 states where scalping is allowed, DeLaForest said. Repeal, he said, will put Minnesota's ticket market on the same terms as most other areas of the economy. "We don't talk about scalping real estate or artwork or stocks and bonds or even baseball cards," he said. Which is why I am completely in favor with Bob Kraft taking the lead on this, not the government. In Massachusetts you can not resale a ticket for over $2 of the face value. Senators can fight back and forth to get a bill passed but an owner of company should be able to police his product. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LooGie Posted October 20, 2007 Author Share Posted October 20, 2007 You really need to do some reseach. This is all about season ticket holders selling their tickets for far more than face value. If you sell a ticket for anything over $2 of the face value then you have broken the law. This is not just a Patriot thing. All owners want the season tickets they sell to be used by the people buying them. Let me give you an example of how out of control Patriots tickets are. I have been on the waiting list for season tickets for years. I am still a loooong way from the top. So every year I try to buy individual tickets when they go on sale. Every year they sell out the entire season in less than 3 minutes. So of course you have to go to a ticket broker, ie Stubhub. The last game I went to at Foxborough I bought SRO (Standing Room Only) tickets that have a $10 face value. Guess what I had to pay? $275. I just paid $250 to go to the Patriots-Cowboys game and they were $82 tickets. You can take this a lot further when you bring in the insane prices parents are paying for Hannah Montana tickets. Bottom line if you get season tickets you need to go to the game or sell them to a friend. I applaud Bob Kraft for trying to get a grip on an out of control situation. He has every right to revoke the season tickets of the people who are doing this. He owns the team he should do what is right for his fans. First thing, I dont agree with you and your outlook on scalpers, brokers and third party sellers. Actually, maybe I do, since you just bought tickets from one. Sounds like you're pissed about the price you paid. Supply and demand baby, and America is built on it, and killing thousands for it. Scalpers are a necessary evil, imo. So you say Patriot tickets are out of control, I say you're out of control for buying them. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for feeding the beast. Just my 2 cents on that. I dont judge, in fact, I applaud anyone who can buy something, and sell them at over 500% profit, and have to get out in the heat or cold and hustle to do it. I wouldn't buy from them, mostly because I enjoy watching games from my house. Cheap beer, and close to the bathroom. Second: If you think Bob Kraft is doing this to "get a grip on an out of control situation" you're crazy. This is to guarantee the home field advantage, and to stop the profit percentage that he could never get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LooGie Posted October 20, 2007 Author Share Posted October 20, 2007 The problem is not the average fan who wants to go to 2 games and sell the other 6 for profit. The problem is that these season tickets are not going to fans. Ticket scalping agencies have a stranglehold on season tickets. They buy season tickets with the only motive of making money. You can try to compare this to houses, blenders and stocks all you want but I daytrade for a living and it is perfectly legal way of making money. Ticket scalping on the other hand is against the law. And I do agree that scalping has/is/and will go on forever but that does not mean that Kraft taking 5-10,000 season tickets out of ticket agencies hands and into actual fans hands is not an important start to getting things under control. sounds like the teams should make sure they're selling to fans, instead of selling to the agencies, then. We can play this game all night, but the fact is, this has nothing to do with the moral dilemma, nor the brass trying to make sure the field stays pure. It's about the home field advantage (which is the teams right to enjoy, however, if the team is selling tickets to agencies everywhere, shame on them) and about the dollars being made that Kraft could never EVER get. this whole argument is a joke, and the judge that allowed this is a total idiot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigTen Posted October 20, 2007 Share Posted October 20, 2007 I pay bloated prices for the tickets because I am either insane or retarded. It is not a free market. There are laws against selling your tickets over face value. It is illegal. I have been fortunate enough that I could afford to go but if money was continuously tight which a lot of people can relate with then it would suck to not be able to go to a game. I'm not sure how anyone can complain about an owner wanting his tickets to be sold for the prices they were intended to be. I agree that those prices are way ridiculous but no one is forcing you to pay that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 "We don't talk about scalping real estate or artwork or stocks and bonds or even baseball cards," he said. No, because people don't get their balls in an uproar when someone buys real estate, artwork, or equities at a low price and makes a HUGE profit on resale. We call that being a "savvy businessman." Personally, I think the ticket brokers that buy huge chunks and somewhat artificially inflate the demand and price are douchebags. But if you don't like what they're charging, don't pay it. That's what I do, and so far it's been working out OK for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMD Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 what I am surprised that teams have not gotten into is taking a chunk of their decent seats and auctioning them off. If someone wants to pay top dollar for a seat, then let the franchise reap the benefits. Have 500 seats near the 50 yd line go to auction every week and you can undercut a lot of those ticket scalper/brokers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suture Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 I live in VA, and have been going to Steelers games for nearly 10 years. This year, the Steelers changed how you attain tickets. You used to send away for an application, receive it, mark which games and how many tickets you wanted, ranked the games you wanted to go to, and then wait to see what you'd get. Well, now they do it through Ticketmaster. The day they went on sale, nobody could get tickets. Every time we tried to buy tickets (we had 5 computers running) -- we were told to wait 12 or 14 minutes for the transaction to be completed. We wrote down the tickets numbers (section/seats) -- but after 12-14 minutes, instead of checking out, it would say "these tickets are no longer available." A few months later, we find all those tickets -- resold on StubHub and Cheap Seats. I am really against it because I know people just buy tickets and resell them. You can't differentiate between someone that does that vs someone that suddenly can't make it to a game and needs to sell those specific tickets. There's no way to tell between the two, unfortunately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 what I am surprised that teams have not gotten into is taking a chunk of their decent seats and auctioning them off. If someone wants to pay top dollar for a seat, then let the franchise reap the benefits. Have 500 seats near the 50 yd line go to auction every week and you can undercut a lot of those ticket scalper/brokers. Because it would be bad publicity - grandpa loses the seasons tickets he's had for 48 years so that an NFL franchise can make EVEN MORE money! Also, your solution contains FAR too much common sense. Get yer crazy outta here, we're full up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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