Revenue / 11.22.17

College Football's Real Hustlers: The Ticket Scalping Syndicate

Access Staff

247Sports (11/22/17) by Brad Crawford

College football season can be a boom time for ticket scalpers, thanks to their intimate knowledge of a team's key players, and fans sense of desperation as the season approaches. "The basic principle to [scalping] is what price is going to equate to supply and demand," says Notre Dame University professor Richard Sheehan. "For some games, that price is going to be much higher than an institution is willing to charge for the tickets. If they charge that high, they're going to catch flack." Differentiating between authentic and fraudulent tickets is a challenge and the only way to know is by using a successful digital fingerprint upon entry. High-end printers ease scamming and tickets reported stolen are deactivated and re-issued, which means the original ticket is voided. One way universities have attempted to become more competitive against the resell market over the last 10 years is by introducing ticket packages, multi-game options that often feature a team's marquee matchup. Most college football fans assume ticket scalping is illegal, when in fact regulation is rare and varies between states as resellers move tickets for large sums in street deals. StubHub's Alison Salcedo says her company is the first secondary ticket seller to offer a Fan Protect Guarantee, which promises full money-back transactions for buyer and seller if something goes wrong.

Read the full article on 24/7 Sports' website.

Tags: Sports , Reselling , News