- Sell tickets to the Australian Ashes cricket series
- Void all the tickets that are resold on eBay
- Profit!
As they like to say on Fark, “what could go wrong?”
I’m sure that dealing with hundreds or thousands of outraged cricket fans is going to be a pleasant experience.
Especially because they’re not punishing the scalpers who already have gotten their money and scarpered off. The people who bought the tickets on line were acting in reasonably good faith.
I smell a new phrase on the winds:
“Cricket hooligans.”
They have bats, and they’re mad as hell.
What? Ticket sellers doing things that piss off customers? Why must you spread such obvious untruths?
These people have to be associated with Ticketmaster somehow.
I know this is going to sound incredibly ignorant, but there are actually* that many *cricket fans? I guess as a midwestern American, the game is so far off my radar that such numbers seem incredible.
I think you misread. Finagle said hundreds or thousands, not hundreds of thousands.
Although I suppose there could be hundreds of thousands of cricket fans too.
Mea culpa.
I believe it’s still the most popular sport in India.
Man. Wait till the nukes fly someday. Nobody to man the breweries and distilleries. Nobody to make the equipment for the teams. Nobody to run the power stations and TV stations to air the games. Nobody to maintain the stadiums. All dead from nuclear war.
All that is scary in itself. But think of a bunch of radiation-impervious guys getting antsy because they can’t compete. While detoxing. With bats.
Mad Max would seem like a Disney film.
I’m trying to figure out how someone could possibly think that eBay is a legitimate sales outlet for tickets.
Why wouldn’t it be?
I’ve bought quite a few tickets from eBay. The fact that I was able to use them to enter sporting events leads me to think it’s possible to buy tickets.
I should have mentioned that despite past experience, I could have been wrong. Actually, that makes for a better story. I got over on The Man! Yay me! 
eBay does permit the resale of tickets. It’s supposed to be the sellers’ duty to determine that this is permitted under the applicable local laws. eBay even offers its services for primary sales (ie, Ticketmaster-type sales). It’s not so unbelievable that someone might think that tickets being resold on eBay must be above board, or else eBay would pull the listing.
Er…in this case, no.
I haven’t looked it up, but from following this on the news down here where it is A Very Big Deal. (And my husband being a fan…)
Because the Ashes is in Stralia this time, they put tickets on sale only in Australia to Aussie fans. There were clear, dire warnings that something like this would happen if the fans resold the tickets.
In other words, Aussie fans got a certain amount sold to Australians only by Cricket Australia, then the Barmy Army (The English fans) would get to buy tickets. This is to ensure, apparently, that you would hear more Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi and less singing from the Barmy Army.
However, and predictably, some who bought those tickets decided to sell them to English fans via eBay. Those are the tickets, to my understanding from listening to the news, that are now being voided.
However, the bad thing here is the Cricket Australia is not releasing the numbers of the tickets that have now been voided. This means, according to the guy I heard on ABC radio this morning, that fans won’t know they have a bad ticket until they rock up to the gate, POSSIBLY AFTER HAVING FLOWN FROM THE UK TO GET HERE.
Now, if you bought a ticket via eBay to the Ashes at that time, you most probably knew it was scalped. Fair enough, shame on you. OTOH, I find it ridiculous that they will possibly allows fans to fly upteen bazillion miles and them be turned away at the gate.
The guy on the ABC said that most won’t know, and I quote, “until they rock up to the gate and it doesn’t beep”. Can’t find a written cite, but the audio is here and scroll down to sport.
.
Cheers,
G
Nice smartass remark, but note my use of “legitimate.” If they’re sold at more than the face price and/or the event’s rules prohibit resale, that’s scalping by most definitions. It’s like saying you thought the nice gentleman standing outside the stadium, sidling up and asking if you want tickets was a legitimate seller.
Hundreds of millions. It’s the biggest sport here (although this is mainly because we have four-way divided loyalty over football codes - Australian, rugby league, rugby union, association). It’s by far the biggest sport in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
In Australia, the recent controversy about an England/ Pakistan game was the main front page story in the broadsheet newspaper for more than a day (although admittedly the umpire at the centre of the row was Australian). The English fans who are grumpy about this suppose that the reason behind this is crowd support. My ground (the MCG) holds 100 000. It is likely to be full for the first few days of the Test.
Just to give you an idea of how big cricket is in India: several times when I was on Indian public transport, random people hearing my accent engaged me in conversation about a former player’s family life.
That being said, this is a schmozzle, and there will be unhappiness at the turnstiles. There will be tens of thousands of Pomgolians stressed out about the validity of their tickets. Trouble will ensue.
eBay allows the sale of tickets online, but prohibits their resale for any more than face value. (They do, of course, have to catch sellers doing this) This is in North America though; international rules may differ. I don’t know if they have any rules (yet) regarding the sale of tickets whose resale is explicitly forbidden by the venue, but I would take a firm caveat emptor stance either way.
I’m sure they’ll just invent a new sport, and it will probably involve larger bats and the heads of the defeated.
Just so long as they don’t run into Shaun of the Dead .