NY investigators target NFL over ticket resale

An average of 54 percent of seats for the most popular draws were unavailable to the general public, instead set aside for insiders and presales for people who, say, use a certain credit card.

“Ticketing, to put it bluntly, is a fixed game”, the report said. The NFL’s shady re-sale policies are a subject of the report, and according to Bloomberg Business, Schneiderman is now investigating the league for possible anti-trust violations.

An NFL spokesman said the NFL Ticket Exchange is just one of many options for ticket holders to buy or sell tickets.

In some cases, tickets to live events sell out within minutes, only to appear right away at enormous mark-ups on sites such as StubHub, according to the report, which calls for major reform to the ticketing process.

The antitrust investigation grew out of a probe by the attorney general’s office into irregularities in the ticketing industry, which found that ticket brokers were using illegal software programs to snap up thousands of tickets and reselling them with huge price markups.

Eric Schneiderman said his office’s probe revealed that just 46 per cent of tickets for events are reserved for the public, according to data on the top-grossing shows in NY, 2012-2015.

“Price floors may make it impossible to obtain tickets on the team-promoted Ticket Exchange platform for below face value when demand decreases”, like during games at the end of a sports season between teams not headed to the playoffs, the report said.

Are you still wondering why you didn’t get to see the Pope at Madison Square Garden?

Ticketmaster did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The attorney general’s office issued a report more than 15 years ago that found New York’s ticket distribution system was largely underground and provided “access to quality seating on the basis of bribes and corruption at the expense of fans”. Despite the state having lifted many restrictions on ticket resale in 2007, the report warns that many of these practices are likely still illegal.

If would-be buyers are going to be hit with sky-high costs, they should benefit when the marketplace decides the tickets are worthless. MSMSS will pay $80,000 in penalties, and Extra Base Tickets will pay $65,000.

“Reinstating caps on markups would still allow brokers a role in the market but would also ensure that any price markups be reasonable”, Schneiderman said.

“It uncovers what’s really a shadowy network, or has been up until now, of middlemen, brokers, ticket vendors and more who really use any means they can, some legal, some illegal, to jack up the prices of tickets and squeeze money out of fans”, Schneiderman told reporters.