PatsFan37
2nd Team Getting Their First Start
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CLICK HERE to Register for a free account and login for a smoother ad-free experience. It's easy, and only takes a few moments.We're going to have to agree to disagree. I've already spent too much time on this.
Good for you. Now WTF does that have to do with scalping tickets..?Great! I hear there is some great Chinese toothpaste available that says "Colgate" on the front. Or dog food that says "Alpo" on the front.
Well, I would never "villify" a person for selling a luxury good for fair market value. Now, a bunch of whining bleeding heart liberals might villify him, but I can't be responsible for them.But more to this situation, there also is something called "intellectual property". The Krafts are doing nothing more than what any movie studio does to protect pirated versions of their product. The originator made the product. The originator has every right to protect its distribution. What did Stub Hub do to make the Patriots such a desired product? Stub Hub is taking unfair advantage. If Kraft jacked up the ticket prices to "what the market would bear", he would be villified. Stub Hub does it and it's OK?
I would have absolutely no problem if he did that. But he doesn't, so I have absolutely no problem with someone stepping in and doing it instead.A "free and open marketplace" should be that way for all parties. Kraft should, therefore, have the very same right to:
1) Hold onto the tickets and horde them until he sees fit to sell them
2) Jack up ticket prices on a game-by-game basis right up until game time.
You want it "free and open" - - then Kraft should have AT LEAST the same right as those leeches Stub Hub in regard to his own product.
For whatever reason, teams don't conduct business that way. Maybe that's because in the long run, that probably isn't a wise strategy. I am just speculating, but perhaps in the long run, having a solid base of season ticket holders is a better strategy than what you have suggested above. Season tickets holders tend to stay through the rough times, and you can force them to buy those pesky preseason games.
China is more capitalistic than the U.S. will ever be.
China is more capitalistic than the U.S. will ever be.
Yeah... some corrupt official in China took bribes, so that must prove how evil and wrong capitalism is.You betcha! Just ask their Food and Drug Administration head.
Ooops! He was just executed for his "capitalism" wasn't he? Taking $800,000 in bribes to OK fake medications to the masses.
Yeah... some corrupt official in China took bribes, so that must prove how evil and wrong capitalism is.
Boy you sure showed us
This is why I precluded my entire statement with the assumption that we are talking about a luxury good here. We are not talking about health care, food, water, home heating oil or a quality of life issue. Of course, since your arguments are completely bankrupt, that's what you always fall back to. I am the first to admit that we need laws and regulations for things such as minimum wage or anti-gouging laws during hurricanes, but that's got nothing to do with this issue.There evidently was no oversight or checks and balances regarding this. This guy approved on his own. Can you see the FDA in our country not having more than just one person accountable? D'ya think there may be a REASON why it is so cheap to manufacture in China? Nah, don't think too deeply about that, Quigon.
****But back to the original issue. Stubhub doesn't "perform a service" to the public. The stadium seats 68,000 people. Stub Hub does not increase the amount or availability of the tickets.
I agree 100%. And I just don't understand why people just want to throw capitalism out the window with regards to tickets. If I go to the football card shop and buy a $10 pack of Upper Deck, and get a Tom Brady-Peyton Manning double autograph, I can turn around and sell it for $500 and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But, for some reason, a lot of people throw a hissy fit if I (hypothetically) did the same thing with my season tickets.Exactly. Alienating fans is a horrid business strategy. The team's business practices are very public and apply to everyone. If I want to sell my ticket for $500, and you want to sell yours for $50, that in no way reflects on the team. But if the team did that, it would be horribly criticized. Imagine if, say Sony withheld PS3 units to artificially increase the demand and then were selling them for thousands on eBay. They would be slaughtered in the media for those business ethics. But if I camped out at Best Buy, got a PS3, and put it up on eBay myself for $2000, that is different.
Yes, they do. They do not increase the amount but, by creating an open marketplace, scalpers do increase the availability. Since you obviously aren't smart enough to figure out how by yourself, let me explain:
I wanted to go to Super Bowl 39, but I don't have season tickets and I don't have any connections or anything like that. Now let's suppose scalping was 100% illegal and 100% enforced and nobody anywhere ever scalped a ticket. So how the hell do you suggest I go about getting Super Bowl tickets...? No one on the planet is going to sell them to me for face value because they are too valuable for that. There's absolutely no reasonable way whatsoever I could ever get a ticket. Period, end of story. Fortunately for me, in the real world, scalping takes place. So I shelled out about $4,000 on eBay and took my dad to the game.
Furthermore, with many different scalpers out there, I was able to negotiate a better deal. I didn't go to StubHub. I went to eBay and negotiated with about a dozen sellers before working out a price I liked for seats I wanted. More scalpers = better for consumer.
In conclusion: With illegal scalping (closed marketplace) I had absolutely zero availability of tickets. With an open marketplace, I had availability - I just had to pay the market value.
As a consumer, I benefitted from the open marketplace. Instead of having no options whatsoever, I had many options before agreeing to pay $4,000 and go to the game. No one forced me to spend the money and I don't begrudge the person who profitted $3,000 one bit.
Um, no it doesn't. Nowhere in my argument have I said anything about the scalper not having inside connections. I am sure some do, and some don't. Some scalpers are these professional businesses, and some are just regular season ticket holders that don't want to go to every single game.You mean Mike Tice?
Your argument naively assumes that the scalper didn't have inside connections.
Where have I said that..? I said I don't have any inside connections, but I never said no one else does. In fact, it's one of the dirty little secrets of the NFL. Plenty of teams are working with scalpers so they can get a piece of the pie too.Perhaps the every once in a while an e-bay seller doesn't (don't think everyone on e-bay is just an old lady in the basement), but to say Stub Hub has no more inside unfair advantage to attain the tickets over you and me is absurd.
Oh, I agree there is some hoarding going on by scalpers, but I have no doubt that it isn't as much as you think. I mean, how many NEP tickets go on sale to the general public...? A couple thousand...?Chicken and the egg. Don't you think the tickets for most games are harder to get BECAUSE of Stub Hub's and ACE's organized pre-hoarding? They have hundreds of folks working full time to horde these tickets. They drive the individual regular Joe aside from getting the tickets originally. If you don't know how that actually works, you should educate yourself on it before extolling thier "virtues".
Oh, I agree there is some hoarding going on by scalpers, but I have no doubt that it isn't as much as you think.
Well, that's because all too often, the teams themselves are in bed with the scalpers. Something like 20 NFL teams have direct relationships with StubHub.Understatement of the year. Open your eyes and you will see that Stub Hub, ACE, etc. own the system of ticket redistribution. You give far too much credence to the annecdotal examples of a few individuals who do it. Meanwhile these very profitable scalper corporations have boilerrooms full of people whose only job 24/7 is to horde these tickets for resale.
My whole point is against massive boilerroom operations like Stub Hub and ACE who tilt the whole system against the individual. Somehow, you confuse that with the individual ticketholder who sells on E-Bay, fer crying out loud.
Shmessy: Stub Hub and ACE, not individual scalpers. But whatever turns you on. "Concession to my point"?????? What do you do? Put a nice gold star on your forehead, Mr. Debating Champion?
My whole point is against massive boilerroom operations like Stub Hub and ACE who tilt the whole system against the individual. Somehow, you confuse that with the individual ticketholder who sells on E-Bay, fer crying out loud.
That statement may be truer than you know... eBay recently bought StubHub.... I wonder how that will change the service from either of those businesses...StubHub is also a person-person site. It matches buyers with sellers, and takes a portion of the sale as a finders fee. It is the same as eBay. If I wanted to put my Michigan tickets on StubHub (which would probably follow with a suicide), I could sell them on there. StubHub and eBay are one in the same.