Ticket Reselling, Price Controls, and Red Sox-Yankees Games

Thanks to attorneys Matthew Saunders and Bryan Stroh (one of my former softball teammates at UVA Law) for passing along an interesting story by Bruce Mohl of the Boston Globe concerning ticket scalping: A Massachusetts court has allowed a consumer to sue a ticket reseller for charging more than $2 above face value for Red Sox tickets. The defendant, Admit One Ticket Agency, was reselling a Red Sox-Yankees ticket with a face value of $80 for $500. As we all know, tickets to Red Sox-Yankees games are probably the most coveted tickets in Boston. Although Massachusetts law on ticket scalping prohibits the reselling of tickets for more than $2 above face value, the state's Department of Public Safety, which licenses ticket resellers, chooses to not enforce the law, claiming that its limited resources are better directed towards matters of public safety.

Admit One's attorney, Joel Beckman, argues that the law has no business regulating the price of tickets to baseball games: "Even in Boston, I don't think you have a right to attend a baseball game." Beckman also argues that the plaintiff, renowned consumer activist Colman Herman, never bought the ticket, and thus was not injured. In response to that argument, Judge Mark Coven finds that Herman may have been injured by his inability to purchase the ticket expect at an inflated price.

This will be an interesting case to follow. Should the market dictate the cost of tickets available on resale, or should the law create a price ceiling? And if you think there should be a ceiling, should there also be ceilings on tickets resold to other entertainment events, like concerts or plays? Or should the law only institute price controls on matters of public necessities, like certain utilities and medicines?

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