Ticket to free commerce
IN A LAWSUIT filed last month, the New England Patriots accused the Internet company StubHub of flouting the state antiscalping law, which forbids the resale of tickets for more than $2 above face value. In a countersuit last week, the website, which allows its users to buy and sell tickets at whatever price the market will bear, accused the team of trying to dominate the market for resale of their own tickets.
The courts, presumably, will settle only the legal dispute -- but not the question of whether the state's existing law is wise. It isn't. The Legislature ought to repeal the antiscalping law when it takes up the issue next year.
Ticket scalpers, by reputation, are the bottom-feeders of the sports and entertainment world. But antiscalping laws put the state in the position of doing something it isn't well equipped to do: supervising the economic behavior of the tens of thousands of people who hold tickets to any given stadium event. The emergence of online ticket forums has underscored the impotence of existing law.
Key lawmakers know the law is outdated. State Senator Michael Morrissey, chairman of the Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure, has floated the idea of limiting the markup on ticket resales to two or three times the face value. Charging more than that for a Patriots ticket with a face value of $125 seems exorbitant. But any legal threshold would be as arbitrary as the existing $2 limit -- and no easier to enforce.
The Patriots and StubHub each accuse one another of violating the law. On the Patriots' official ticket exchange site, prices do not exceed the face value, but TicketMaster charges a service fee that could approach $10 or more. Though prices on StubHub may be far higher, company officials argue, among other things, that the company doesn't track the face value of the tickets it sells, and that some buyers and sellers of Patriots tickets live in states that do not regulate ticket resales.
Regardless, even well-meaning laws can have unforeseen consequences. To the extent that antiscalping laws reduce the number of tickets available on game day, they drive prices up. In states that have relaxed their anti scalping laws, the price of tickets on the secondary market has declined.
Repealing ticket-resale rules wouldn't necessarily be to StubHub's advantage alone. It's hard to imagine free-market rules that don't also let the Patriots set conditions for the sale and resale of their own tickets. (In this scenario, venues could and should help fans by discouraging bulk ticket purchases.)
In any case, the Legislature doesn't need to take sides in a business dispute between a sports team and a website. At this point, the state's best option is to step back, and let the market for seats sort itself out.
