Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. has developed a new way to resell tickets that shuts out the brokers and scalpers it has long scorned.
The system relies on Ticketmaster's "paperless" ticketing platform, which makes customers prove their purchase by showing a credit card and ID when they arrive at an event. Without paper tickets, there's nothing for scalpers to resell.
Now with its new exchange system, Ticketmaster has come up with a way to let buyers resell a paperless ticket, while still cutting out ticket-resale leader StubHub and other brokers. That gives Ticketmaster a chance to capture more of the so-called secondary market, which generates greater fees and profits per ticket, although fans sometimes feel ripped off.
If scalping tickets is legal, should a team or ticket broker be able to cap the number of games a person can resell? Or better yet, should they be able to assign a price ceiling on secondary market ticket sales?
On a final note lets talk about fees Ticketmaster collects on secondary resale tickets..."For the initial sales run, fees amounted to a little more than $4 per ticket, but on resales the buyer was required to pay $1.95 and a 15 percent transaction fee — up to $10.95 a pop. In the home opener, the total resale fee averaged $7.89 and was shared between Ticketmaster and the university."
When does the FTC step in and say NO the market should dictate the price of goods?
1 comment:
Ticketmaster has crossed the line of taking full control of the scalping market. If people buy tickets they should be able to resell them themselves without having to pay extra. What they are doing is preventing people from making money from selling tickets at a higher price. What if a person has tickets, but can't make it to a game. They are going to want to sell their tickets to another person but now they have to pay a secondary selling fee. How is that fair? They bought the tickets so why should they have to pay extra just so they can sell them to another person who needs tickets?
Chase O. Per. 6
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