illegal ticket sale on ebay

[Rosey]

[quote KenP]Sorry, but I'm opposed to selling tickets at "market" price.  Hockey tickets are subsidized by the school.  Remember, most undergrads aren't exactly rolling in dough.[/quote]
You can solve this problem by requiring ticket holders to present a student ID along with their ticket when they try to enter, effectively destroying the secondary market for student section tickets.

Really, it simply comes down to how much power I want government to have, and that is: very little.  I see no reason why the government should have the power to define artificial limits to private market transactions.

If Cornell wants to combat the secondary market problem, they can issue tickets that are limited to students or even to an individual student, although the latter would guarantee lots of empty seats at every game, so I doubt it would be optimal.  What they should not be able to do is to use government to tell you that you can resell the ticket, but only for what Cornell deems appropriate.  The doctrine of first sale should apply here, just as it does to almost everything else.

Also remember, we're in an institute that believes in amateurism to the point of not offering athletic scholarships.

What does this have to do with anything?  If you're going to try for an analogy, you should try to explain it, or use one that's more obvious.

If you start letting people scalp tickets to a hockey game, the base price will rise to even more unrealistic levels and be unattainable except for the richest fans, student or townie.

Let me tell you my own story.

I was a sophomore when I discovered Cornell hockey.  My friend Chris Pike came to me one day in November of 1995 and said, "Hey, I can't use this ticket: why don't you go?"  I said, "Sure!", although I didn't know what to expect.  Well, after that night, I was hooked.  I never missed another home game until my graduation three years later.

How does this story relate to this conversation?  I had no money.  I was po', despite having a campus job.  I don't know how many times my friends asked me to go to the movies with them, and I had to say, "Sorry guys, I can't afford it."  Really.  Most of the "underprivileged" kids on campus only had one $250 North Face jacket and a $30,000 Saab.  In contrast, I had a ratty old parka my folks bought me about 4 years earlier.  I only had a car for my senior year, and the brake lines gave out during the winter, which led to (in retrospect) a rather amusing day spent replacing them in CC lot.  Yadda yadda yadda.  You get the picture.

Part of the reason I had no money to go to the movies is that I had priorities.  One of those priorities was paying for tickets.  I couldn't do a lot of things, but I'll be damned, I was going to be able to afford those tickets.

I doubt I would have noticed the difference between the $150 I had to pay and the $400 I should have been paying; it simply would have meant that more of my disposable income would have gone into hockey tickets, and less into food and other entertainment.

Moral: true fans, no matter how strapped for cash they are, will get to the games even if the tickets are sold at market value.

Cheers,
Kyle

[Beeeej]

[quote krose]Really, it simply comes down to how much power I want government to have, and that is: very little. I see no reason why the government should have the power to define artificial limits to private market transactions.[/quote]

Are you really that absolutist?  See, again, Lochner v. New York.  If there are enough people out of work that you can privately contract with employees to take an extremely low wage and oppressively long work hours, why should the government be able to step in?

Beeeej

[atb9]

[quote krose]Really, it simply comes down to how much power I want government to have, and that is: very little.  I see no reason why the government should have the power to define artificial limits to private market transactions.
[/quote]

http://www.c-span.org/watch/index.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS  ;-)

I reported the auction to eBay.

[Rosey]

And Kyle I disagree that this makes more tickets available.  In this particular ebay sale the seller has zero previous sales of any kind - at least under this user name.  As he or she has provided us with the section and row number only - Sec. G, row 10 - and no seat number it is clear they are doing everything they can to not get caught.  I suspect that this person is trying to recoup as much of the cost of the season ticket package as possible.

Sounds like a great way for a financially-strapped student to recoup some of the cost of season tickets.  I like that approach.

If he or she succeeds, what incentive do they have to sell their tickets to lesser games like Quinnipiac or RIT?

This reasoning is simply asinine.

The greater the market value of a commodity, the more likely someone is to sell it, because there's a greater chance the money recouped will outweigh whatever added value it has to the person.

Artificially deflating the market value means people are more likely not to think about the tickets sitting in their dorm rooms over break when people like me would be willing to---but are unable to, by law---pay a premium for them.  This is exactly what happened to the Clarkson and SLU tickets this year: lots of seats wound up going unfilled because fraternity and sorority members not able to go to the games didn't bother reselling the tickets.

This inaction was prompted at least in part by the high cost/benefit ratio of selling them legally: you first need to find a market (and not everyone is familiar with ELynah); then, you need to go meet them somewhere, and pray they aren't psycho; finally, you have to pray that they won't go online and resell them illegally, or go to the game and scream "FUCK EM UP!!!!!", and get your season tickets revoked.  I can easily see how this trouble isn't worth $15.  But is it worth $30 or $40?  That's a much easier bargain to drive.

Are we to believe that this person has made it to every home game thus far, even the ones over break, and can't make it to the Harvard game?  Call me skeptical.

Maybe he made the decision to recoup most of his costs on the most valuable game, so he could afford to provide his support to the team for the rest of the games.  Who knows?  You certainly don't, and neither do I.

Cheers,
Kyle

[Jacob 03]

[quote krose]Moral: true fans, no matter how strapped for cash they are, will get to the games even if the tickets are sold at market value.
[/quote]

see, i thought the moral was "true fans" are defined by krose, or the chicago school, or those who post most often on elynah, or some other arbitrary measure....

[Rosey]

[quote Beeeej]Are you really that absolutist?  See, again, Lochner v. New York.  If there are enough people out of work that you can privately contract with employees to take an extremely low wage and oppressively long work hours, why should the government be able to step in?[/quote]
They shouldn't be able to.  The alternative to allowing companies to pay market rate for workers is for fewer jobs to be available.  I fail to see how starving is better than earning enough of a pittance to feed your family.

Remember that wages don't exist in a vacuum: lower wages mean less spending, which equals lower earnings, which cycles back to lower wages.  It isn't always about the big bad company trying to screw the little guy: it's about competition, which invariably creates wealth.  That's how capitalism works.

Cheers,
Kyle

[nshapiro]

I think KenP has it exactly right.  Cornell sells the tickets at a reasonable price (Princeton made me pay $12 standing room for the Cornell game!) and Lynah faithful line up to buy the tickets.  Ideally, the most faithful should get the tickets, and tickets should be resold at face value to other faithful, not to the wealthiest faithful.

I think this becomes a discussion between what is legal and what is right.  Cornell could solve the whole ticket line problem by just saying "anyone willing to pay $1000 come pick your seat...$999....$998... until all the seats are gone.  This would be legal, but I don't think anyone would argue that it is right.  

I am not a lawyer, but when Cornell sells the ticket, aren't they allowed to limit the rights of the purchaser to resell?  If they do this, what is the argument for the marketplace setting the value?

[Beeeej]

[quote krose][quote Beeeej]Are you really that absolutist?  See, again, Lochner v. New York.  If there are enough people out of work that you can privately contract with employees to take an extremely low wage and oppressively long work hours, why should the government be able to step in?[/quote]
They shouldn't be able to.  The alternative to allowing companies to pay market rate for workers is for fewer jobs to be available.  I fail to see how starving is better than earning enough of a pittance to feed your family.

Remember that wages don't exist in a vacuum: lower wages mean less spending, which equals lower earnings, which cycles back to lower wages.  It isn't always about the big bad company trying to screw the little guy: it's about competition, which invariably creates wealth.  That's how capitalism works.[/quote]

Spoken like someone who has never had to work 60-hour weeks breathing in baking flour only to earn not enough of a pittance to feed his family.

Capitalism, it is generally agreed, creates an underclass by necessity, and most modern thinkers agree that there should be some kind of safety nets in place for those most affected by it.  Absolutist libertarians, I hate to say, are usually those would be the least marginalized by removing those safety nets.  It leaves me curious how they'd sleep at night if they actually achieved what they were after.

Beeeej

[original poster]

Kyle, you can't prove that tickets to St. Lawrence and Clarkson went unsold because of anti-scalping laws.  More likely that the students in question don't know about eLynah.  Even more likely they don't need the money.  And the law does allow resale with a 20% premium.

[Scersk '97]

[quote krose]
Artificially deflating the market value means people are more likely not to think about the tickets sitting in their dorm rooms over break when people like me would be willing to---but are unable to, by law---pay a premium for them.  This is exactly what happened to the Clarkson and SLU tickets this year: lots of seats wound up going unfilled because fraternity and sorority members not able to go to the games didn't bother reselling the tickets.
[/quote]

*I* just wish there were some way to fill those seats.  Another great advantage of general admission:  you could count the gen ads that appeared at the gate and modify the number of "standing room" tickets you sell based on that number.  Make standing rooms (or call them "2nd class gen ad" or whatever) equivalent to gen ads once the puck drops.  People that don't make it for the start of the game get  to hope their ticket hasn't already been "resold."

Of course, that would also drive the market value of student tickets down...  which, depending on your viewpoint, would be a good or a bad thing.

[original poster]

Beeeej,
I was able to "report" the auction but ebay doesn't let you explain why you are reporting it - probably so they can claim ignorance later.

[Rosey]

[quote original poster]Kyle, you can't prove that tickets to St. Lawrence and Clarkson went unsold because of anti-scalping laws.  More likely that the students in question don't know about eLynah.  Even more likely they don't need the money. [/quote]
Probably a combination of a lot of factors.  But my point was simply that many of the people who didn't bother for $15 would have bothered for $30 or $40.  There's no way to prove it either way, but I strongly suspect this is the case.

Cheers,
Kyle

[Rosey]

*I* just wish there were some way to fill those seats.  Another great advantage of general admission:  you could count the gen ads that appeared at the gate and modify the number of "standing room" tickets you sell based on that number.  Make standing rooms (or call them "2nd class gen ad" or whatever) equivalent to gen ads once the puck drops.  People that don't make it for the start of the game get  to hope their ticket hasn't already been "resold."

I wish they'd just make it general admission for every game: then I wouldn't have to worry about getting tickets before going to Ithaca.  I could show up 1-1/2 hours before the game and be assured of a seat, just like everyone else.  Reserved seats have their place (people who like paying more for that convenience, I suppose), but ideally most of the arena would be general admission.

Another upside: this would solve the scalping "problem."

Cheers,
Kyle

[Ken \'70]

[quote ugarte]So you are both an originalist and a fan of incorporation theory? Don't see too many of those. I think most constitutional scholars would agree that (a) the Feds have the right to regulate interstate commerce (I, 8, iii), so to the extent that the sales are done interstate OR there is a national market for the goods (Wickard v. Filburn, Gonzalez v. Raich) scalping laws would be ok, but more relevant here, (b) it is well within the police power of state governments to establish contract law for transactions within its borders (Am. X).


Feel free to despise the economic theory behind ticket scalping law but please don't drag the Constitution through the mud in the process.[/quote]

I don't know what incorporation theory is, and I don't know what type of originalism you're referring to so I can't answer that first question.

I can tell you that most "constitutional scholars" (Lawrence Tribe comes to mind) labor on behalf of creating gossamer thin rationales for the legislature to do whatever it wants despite limitations of the Constitution.  And Raich is an excellent example of that perversity.  

According to that decision the commerce clause allows the Feds to prohibit a private individual from growing a plant, legal in the state of CA and prescribed by his doctor, solely for that individual's use and never to be taken off his private property.  You need a "constitutional scholar" to explain how you get to that power of the Federal government from the simple statement which grants congress the ability "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states,..."

Police powers are granted to states in the 10th Amendment, they include protection of the welfare, safety, and health of the public. A private sale of a hockey ticket falls within the proper police powers of a State?  Only in the collectivist utopian fantasy where the government controls eveything for the good of the people.

Finally, the "illegality" in the title refers to state law, not Federal, and the commerce clause is a delegation to the Federal legislature, not state.

[Beeeej]

I love people who are positive they know what the wording in the Constitution means, and can't fathom how anybody could read it a different way.

Beeeej