FanHouse StubHub

It was Thomas Tusser, of course, who once said, "A fool and his money are soon parted." Perhaps never has this been more true the case of Nebraska fans and the upcoming spring game. The glorified practice recently sold out, which has produced an outrageous market for the now hard-come-by tickets. An AP wire story opens with the following anecdote:

The week of the sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert in Omaha last month, you could call a local ticket broker and pay $39 for a seat.

For Saturday's sold-out Nebraska spring football game, that broker is getting $95 a ticket.

"I'm not going to be one to judge the craziness of Nebraska football fans," Ticket Express owner Chad Carr said. "The weird thing about this game, I can't keep tickets in stock."

When I last checked on the national ticket site StubHub, prices for Nebraska's spring game were ranging from $44-$148. Face value for the tickets was $10 for reserved seating and $8 for general admission. That's quite the markup. And let's keep in mind this is for a practice game, and one that won't even feature a match-up between the top offensive and defensive units.

It was under Bill Callahan's regime that spring game attendance at Nebraska first took off. The previous attendance record occurred in 2005 when 63,416 fans showed up. Given the disastrous season a year ago, fans are apparently anxious to see what the Bo Pelini era will bring.

We didn't have to do a whole lot of marketing or advertising. It pretty much sold itself," said Nebraska athletic marketing director Corrie Sears. "It's our fans being excited about the new era with Tom Osborne back (as athletic director) and Bo Pelini."

"What we have here is very special," Sears said, "and what we have are very passionate fans. The spring game is becoming more of an event, and we're treating it more like a real game for our fans."

Well, given that it's already surpassed a concert by "The Boss," the spring game has definitely become an event in Nebraska.

The NFL voted this month to choose one of six ticket sellers to be the official ticket reseller of the NFL. Having a league-wide deal would replace the team by team deals that currently exist.

The Patriots and Steelers have no reseller deals, and apparently, the new deal will have to be lucrative to replace the mid to high six figure deals the rest of the teams have. The league-wide deal also would not derail individual rules that prohibit resale of tickets.

The Patriots, for example are cracking down on the resellers. They are currently suing StubHub for ticket markups which are against local laws and the Patriots' rules against reselling tickets.

I don't know what to think about this issue. I know ticket resales will happen, and I have bought tickets through legal ticket brokers before. If the league knows that resales are going to happen, why shouldn't they profit from them?

But on the other hand, as a fan, I kind of like the Patriots' approach of banning resale for profit. Here's my explanation:

Matt Watson told you earlier in the week that you'll need an internet connection to get Rockies World Series tickets. I'm going to add something else to the checklist: money. A lot of it. Apparently Rockies fever has been renewed in Denver, resulting in World Series ticket prices that would set you back a few months rent.

Days before World Series seats at Coors Field go on sale to the general public, ticket brokers and "marketplaces" such as StubHub and TicketsNow are already offering spots at the big games. The prices, though, range from about $400 for a Rockpile seat - which is a $65 face value for the World Series and a $4 ticket during the regular season - to nearly $6,000 for the best seats.
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StubHub, TicketsNow and other sites were seeing brisk business Thursday. Sean Pate, a StubHub spokesman, said Rockies World Series tickets are the hottest seller on the site, with an average sale price of about $750 and a high-seller of about $3,000.

And I thought it was expensive when I dropped a few bills to watch my Angels in the World Series in '02, and that was for Game 7. I can't imagine having to cough up around four hundo just to sit in the Rockpile -- this is really getting out of hand. Now, had Arizona made it, then we might have a slightly different story.

In a somewhat ironic move, the team in the NFL that has become notorious for cheating, has won a bid to crack down on fans who have bought or sold Patriots tickets on StubHub, FanHouser David J. Warner points out to me. Matter of fact, they have received a list of names and will work from there:

The Patriots won't say what they plan to do with the names, but in a lawsuit filed last year against StubHub, the team said it could seek to revoke season tickets of people who use StubHub to violate the team's rules against reselling tickets for a profit and the state's rarely enforced anti-scalping law, which restricts ticket markups to $2 above face value, plus some service charges.
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StubHub vigorously opposed the Patriots' request, arguing it violates the confidentiality agreement with its customers. StubHub, which filed a countersuit against the Patriots, said the team wants to create a monopoly on the resale market for its own tickets.

Hmm, the Patriots planning to create a monopoly while looking out for their own interests? Why does that not shock me. We'll keep you updated on the latest occurrences in this situation as they unfold. Personally, I can't stand when the ticket market becomes inflated because of scalping, so anything that will kill the market seems beneficial to me.