Am I misreading this, or are you saying you can be turned away from a football game for wearing the wrong team’s shirt? You have to be kidding.
InvisibleWombat for reasons that I would suspect arise out of the unfortunate violence between English football fans in recent decades, fandom and attendance at matches is highly regulated to a degree that seems positively freakish to anyone not used to it (positively freakish being a term not inappropriate for a lot of English football fans also).
As to the OP, I must say that I think that Shalmanese is the only person who comes close to getting to grips with the issue.
Allowing retailers to stand between manufacturers and the public, and to charge a hefty markup, is in fact entirely the norm in our capitalist societies. The interesting thing is why people perceive scalpers differently, and why the manufacturers (in this case the original ticket sellers) seem to underprice highly valued tickets.
I should add that my comments related essentially to normal ticket sales, and the Live8 thing obviously has its own peculiarities.
I think what people are forgetting is that although in the US we believe in capitalism, and we know that capitalism is based on supply and demand, and we beleive that a business should be able to charge whatever they can get for whatever product they have, there is also a strong emphasis on fairness in our society as well.
I hate scalpers to athletic events because it does not seem fair.
My favorite basketball team is the San Antonio Spurs. They are in the Finals right now. I tried to get tickets. The Spurs public relations people came out before the first game and said that they were going to be issuing numbered wrist bands and that they were going to be limiting everyone to two tickets per person. They knew that there was going to be a high demand, it seems that they wanted to create a feeling of fairness to the community that supports them so fervently during the year. Sure, only about 12,000 people can afford season tickets, but the rest of us buy individual tickets, hot dogs and souveniers at the games, t-shirts, mugs, ect. away from the games.
They sold out within 3 seconds of putting the games on sale. I had no problem with that, they were selling from multiple ticket offices and the other fans just got lucky. No big deal. However, the scalpers had plenty of tickets to sell at prices only the very wealthy could afford.
Immediately there was uproar in the community (well if you can guage uproar from about 75% of the people at my job, comments in the local newspaper, and local talk radio). They perceived it as unfair. There was quite a few “there ought to be a law” comments.
Two days later, the Spurs Public Relations people appeared on local tv and radio acknowledged that fans were frustrated with them, thinking that they were profiting off of the scalping somehow. They acknowledged that people were angry with ticket agencies both in town and out of town (people were especially steamed with out of town companies possessing and profiting off of lots of tickets) and they tried to explain what happened. They simply said “the ticket scalpers are good at what they do” He said that they work the season ticket holders all year and that there is nothing legally they can do about it.
Basically, the Spurs did not want to be perceived as con artists who were taking advantage of their fan base. It appeared as if the community of sports fans was frustrated and angry with the perceived “unfairness” of how the tickets were eventually sold and the fact that businesses profited off of the transactions to the point that only a few local fans could actually afford the tickets.
Nope, I’m serious. Grounds are strictly segregated between home & away supporters, for safety reasons.
Very interesting. I wonder why they can’t impose restrictions on the holders of season tickets?
I would think that most sports teams would like to have a large fan base. It would certainly help when they need a new stadium. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I get the feeling that most sports teams are fixated on the business aspects of sports, to the exclusion of everything else. Even though an NFL team plays nearby, my chances of ever seeing them play a game there are near zero. The last time I looked, hockey (RIP) and basketball tickets were available, just very expensive.
How do European football teams handle ticket sales? Do you have the well-off who can afford season tickets and everyone else has to watch the game on television?
Sorry but I don’t see it. Many things are in short supply, and many things go to those who can afford the most. I’d be the first to agree that that may not be fair, but it seems that the perception that sporting tickets must be shared fairly is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to having a “right” to what others will pay more for than you.
Answer for England: No. Season tickets are within reach of most people - for Man Utd this season they’re £350-£700 (that’s for about 20 matches), with individual matches £20-£40. However, there’s something like a ten year waiting list for season tickets (they choose to keep a portion of the ground non-season-ticket, even though they could easily sell them that way). This is one of the reasons the fans so dislike having Malcolm Glazer in charge - raising prices is about the only way he’s going to make more money, and it’s something that’s not been done so far, even though it’s been running as a public company.
And in comparison, lowly Stockport County (playing three divisions lower) are charging £300-£400 for a season ticket, and £15-£20 for match tickets. However, there’s certainly not a ten-year wait 
Individual match tickets generally get made available to supporters who are members, i.e. have pre-paid a (fairly small) fee, before going to the general public.
(Oh, and all sales are done directly by the clubs themselves, recording purchasers’ details, so they’ll quickly spot someone buying up hundreds of tickets.)
(Oh, and yet another point - I mentioned Stockport for a reason, being only a few miles from Old Trafford. We don’t go to a match because it’s a Premiership match, we go to a match because it’s the team we support, no matter what division they’re in. If the top clubs went after £100 a ticket, targeting the rich, it’d be a moneyspinner in the short term, but a gamble. If such a team drove out all the real supporters, then got relegated, they’d be playing in an empty stadium. Keep the real supporters, and you’ve got money coming in even if you have a terrible run.)
You’re being obstinate. Think of the ticket is a “one-time” license to view an event. Licenses are typically NOT transferrable. The granter of the license can and usually does put restrictions.
Don’t be surprised one day if tickets come issued with IDs on them an only the ID holder will be granted admittance.
OK, I am being dumb, but not obstinate. Why would the Met (or whoever) want to spend a single slim dime (on an ID system) to prevent scalping?
Is it really that important?
Well, obviously you can see a lot of hard feelings toward scalpers and the act of scalping in this thread. By taking measures against it, the Met would be sending out the message to “fans” that they care for them and want to make sure that everyone gets a fair shake at the best seats. Money spent would essentially be for a public relations measure. It would make the general public see that the Met has everyone’s best interest in mind.
Manchester City do have something approaching this in place, for a combination of various reasons already described, only one of which is to prevent touting.
Given this, why do we need a separate scalping law to enforce a private license?
I don’t know much about soccer, but they try as much as possible to separate the supporters of the two teams in order to avoid fights. So, maybe it’s refereing to someone wearing a shirt of team A who has tickets for the part of the stadium they reserved to supporters of team B?
Just a WAG…
For, errrrrm, all of the reasons already given earlier? :dubious:
Econ 101:
Rampant scalping of any event is a market signal that the commodity is underpriced. If tickets were sold on a more auction-like basis from the official source, there would be less incentive for scalping.
The reason some people object to the practice is because they feel that anyone who benefits greatly from good market sense is morally reprehensible. Benefiting slightly from the same opportunity is considered OK, so a 10% markup is good, 200% is bad. One is called “legitimate profit from services rendered,” the other, “gouging”.
Some people feel that any profit made from an event should go to the originator, not a middleman. This ignores the fact that there are many middlemen involved already, but if their profit is not seen as “excessive,” the amounts can be justified. If the ticket printer marked up his services 1000%, he would probably be hit with similar accusations, too.
An additional factor in the supply/demand curve: many concerts have built-in supply limitations. Elton John may not want to perform 3 shows a day until the demand subsides; there is only one Elton (I hope); and most shows are presence-intensive, that is, you have to physically be there to enjoy it. This puts a limit on how many seats can be made available at one time.
And for sports events, the limitations can be even more severe. A final championship game cannot be played more than once, so the seating limitations come from the house size and arenas can be made only so big.
Contrast this to the sale of apples. If apples are in demand, more can be grown, not only of the same variety, but other varieties that might be a good substitute for a buyer. Few people would be happy with an Elton clone; they want the real thing.
Another contrast would be Elton’s CD sales. Pressing plants can crank out a nearly unlimited supply of CDs, all identical, and music can be passed around thru the Internet. Result: no market for scalped Elton CDs.
You’re ignoring a huge reason that people dislike the practice - they see the concert, performance, match or whatever as being about something other than a money-making exercise. As do many performers, sports teams, etc. They don’t always want to make maximum profits at the expense of everything else.
That’s fine, and a personal choice they have every right to make (although my bullshit detector is beeping – why charge for something that they think should not be a “money-making exercise”?). But they also want to prohibit anyone else from benefitting, especially to an amount that seems “excessive.” Hence, anti-scalping laws.
I find it hard to believe that the NBA finals are held for purely altruistic reasons. They are held to make money. But some people feel that money should go to only the “right” pockets.