OT: Ticketmaster

[River_Dog]

I guess this is a football topic as most of us have used this vendor or a competing service to buy tickets to Seahawk games. I certainly have.

I have mixed emotions about this lawsuit. As a rule, my default position is that government should not be interfering with business unless it's a clear and egregious situation. Let the free market work its magic. Especially with all the reviews that get published, if a restaurant is charging hidden fees, word is going to get out.

Ticketmaster does have competition. When I go to buy tickets for a Hawks game, I'll use both Stub Hub and Vivid Seats as well as Ticketmaster. I'll look at all 3 for the same game and buy from the vendor that has the best seats for the best price. Just because they have a large chunk of market share doesn't necessarily mean that they are a monopoly. I'm sort of like Teddy Roosevelt, that as long it's a level playing field, big is not necessarily bad.

But on the other hand, there are accusations that Ticketmaster will "lock up" venues, artists, and teams by using their size to force them into long term exclusive contracts and threatening them with some sort of retaliation (I haven't heard with exactly what) if they work with competitors.

Perhaps instead of breaking up Ticketmaster, which could cause some significant upheaval in the industry, I might be for doing a few regulatory things, like banning long term agreements.

Comments?

[Aseahawkfan]

I'm doubtful it will even succeed. So far the Biden admin has officials talking big about corporate break ups and lawsuits of this kind, not sure they have won or been successful with a single one. Far more bark than bite with these lawsuits a bit like the Dems and Trump and all their big talk about getting him when not a single legal action taken has done much to slow him down.

Dems love lawsuits. Love to use the legal system to attack. Never seem to be able to win against anyone but small mom and pops that can't afford expensive legal defense and sometimes not even them. Even the Dems tend to hire expensive private lawyers when they're in trouble to beat government lawyers.

Government lawsuits like this seem like a whole lot of posturing with not much getting done. I can't remember the last time the government successfully slowed down a company with a break up. Maybe back with Ma Bell or the Railroads? Even the anti-monopoly lawsuits against Microsoft were total failures.

[River_Dog]

I'm doubtful it will even succeed. So far the Biden admin has officials talking big about corporate break ups and lawsuits of this kind, not sure they have won or been successful with a single one. Far more bark than bite with these lawsuits a bit like the Dems and Trump and all their big talk about getting him when not a single legal action taken has done much to slow him down.

Dems love lawsuits. Love to use the legal system to attack. Never seem to be able to win against anyone but small mom and pops that can't afford expensive legal defense and sometimes not even them. Even the Dems tend to hire expensive private lawyers when they're in trouble to beat government lawyers.

Government lawsuits like this seem like a whole lot of posturing with not much getting done. I can't remember the last time the government successfully slowed down a company with a break up. Maybe back with Ma Bell or the Railroads? Even the anti-monopoly lawsuits against Microsoft were total failures.

That's kinda where I'm at, but I want to hear more, specifically what kind of threats are they issuing to venues and artists not to do business with Ticketmaster's competitors? What about these long term, exclusive contracts? Does Stub Hub and Vivid Seats engage in this practice? If this is common, why can I still get tickets to most any NFL game from any of 3 different ticket vendors? Are they price gouging where they raise prices to events, they know will be sold out no matter the price in order to squeeze as much money as possible? If so, how much more did they charge for similar events?

This is a service industry, so having what is known as a horizontal monopoly where, using my former employer as an example, the company owns the farms, the trucking companies, storage facilities, etc, making it impossible for a start-up to compete. There's not nearly the same infrastructure in the service industry. They are a middleman that doesn't produce a product, and it's more difficult to create a true monopoly.

I don't have enough information to form an opinion and look forward to hearing more comments.

[Aseahawkfan]

I don't know. I find it hard to believe myself. What artists could they control? Taylor Swift isn't going to let anyone control her. She's one of the biggest in the world. She could sell tickets out of a van in the middle of a field she rented and sell the place out. Not sure many artists would want that kind of bad PR.

So not real sure who filed the suit or what evidence they have. But if the company were doing it, it will come out in the wash and probably lead to a fine or something.

[River_Dog]

I don't know. I find it hard to believe myself. What artists could they control? Taylor Swift isn't going to let anyone control her. She's one of the biggest in the world. She could sell tickets out of a van in the middle of a field she rented and sell the place out. Not sure many artists would want that kind of bad PR.

So not real sure who filed the suit or what evidence they have. But if the company were doing it, it will come out in the wash and probably lead to a fine or something.

The DOJ are the ones that are suing Ticketmaster.

I'm still not clear on what kind of evidence of intimidation and retaliation the government has on Ticketmaster. Here's the closest thing I've seen to the evidence that DOJ has on Ticketmaster:

In 2021, the concert giant threatened to financially retaliate against a firm if one of its portfolio companies didn't stop competing with Live Nation (Ticketmaster)for artist promotion contracts, the Justice Department alleged. Live Nation has also scooped up smaller promoters it viewed as a threats, officials said.

I need a few more specifics on that alleged financial retaliation. And large companies buy up smaller ones all the time. It's not necessarily a monopolistic move. Long term contracts aren't necessarily bad, either, as theoretically, they could stabilize prices. At my former employer, most of our raw product was acquired through long term contracts from growers who signed for a fixed price instead of the boom or bust open market. It was a win-win for both sides.

I just did a search "Seattle Seahawk single game tickets 2024." I found the following sites that were selling tickets to Hawk games: Vivid Seats, Stub Hub, Seatgeek, tickets-center, eventsticketcenter, boxofficetickets, and of course, ticketmaster. Some of those I've never heard of before and would be reluctant to use, but StubHub, Vivid Seats, and Seat Geek are sites that I know are legitimate. I certainly don't see any monopoly as far as Seahawk tickets are concerned.

Until I see more evidence, this appears to me to be election year grandstanding by the DOJ.

[Aseahawkfan]

Is it that socialist Democrat who filed lawsuits against high profile companies and hasn't won a single one? Lina Khan is her name. She's been filing a bunch of lawsuits fishing for wins.

I see. She is FTC. This is DoJ. So might be criminal acts involved.

[River_Dog]

I generally like using StubHub anyway. 2 years ago, a group of us went to a Seahawks home game, enough so that we had to buy tickets in two groups. One group bought their tickets over Ticketmaster, the other group StubHub. As a rule, you can download the actual ticket with the bar code that you need to present at the gate at least 24 hours before gametime. The group that bought their tickets on Ticketmaster weren't able to download their tickets until just a few hours before the game and were on their way to the stadium before Ticketmaster finally got their act together. This was before the Taylor Swift fiasco.

They might want to take a look at banning these long-term exclusive contracts, but I just don't see where a break-up is justified. Sure, they have a very large market share, but I don't see where it gives them a competitive advantage. I recently looked into buying tickets for a Mariners baseball game, and you could buy tickets over 4 different legitimate websites. The biggest problem is the scalpers.

[NorthHawk]

I don't know if it happens where you are, but here we often have a sole outsource for tickets and when they go on sale they are all sold out within 2 minutes. Then magically, thousands turn up on their other pages for sale at 4, maybe 5 or more times the original selling price. That's the problem with a monopoly and if similar things are happening where you are, it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't laws in place to prevent usurious practices.

[River_Dog]

I don't know if it happens where you are, but here we often have a sole outsource for tickets and when they go on sale they are all sold out within 2 minutes. Then magically, thousands turn up on their other pages for sale at 4, maybe 5 or more times the original selling price. That's the problem with a monopoly and if similar things are happening where you are, it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't laws in place to prevent usurious practices.

That happened to me when I went to try to buy tickets for a game in Munich. IMO it's not Ticketmaster, but scalpers who buy up tickets then re-sell them for a much higher price. That is, unless Ticketmaster is colluding with the scalpers, which would be incredibly stupid if they were.

And yes, there are laws in place, but since a lot of these scalpers are from international countries, they're not very effective at preventing abuse. But here's one case where they caught a couple of local yokels:

The US Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on three New Yorkers for using automated bots to purchase tens of thousands of tickets online with the goal of scalping them.

On Friday, the FTC announced it was collecetively fining the three defendants $3.7 million for buying over 150,000 tickets for music concerts and sporting events and then reselling them at higher prices.

The crackdown represents the first time the FTC has enforced the BOTS Act, a US law passed in 2016 that’s designed to stop people from using automated software to help them scalp tickets online.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/3-scalpers-f ... cketmaster

People are rightfully upset about the exorbitant ticket prices to some of the more popular events, and being that Ticketmaster is the industry's 500 lb gorilla, they make an easy scapegoat. But there isn't a smoking gun that implicates them.

[NorthHawk]

Up here it was actually the orginal sellers be it Ticketmaster or one of the others who had exclusive rights to sell tickets, not the scalpers so the company became the scalpers.

[River_Dog]

Up here it was actually the orginal sellers be it Ticketmaster or one of the others who had exclusive rights to sell tickets, not the scalpers so the company became the scalpers.

I tried to get tickets to the Hawks-Bucs game in Munich in 2022 and to one of the games, Dolphins-Chiefs I think, in 2023. also in Munich. Both were being marketed by Ticketmaster Europe. They were done by lottery where you got assigned a spot in the queue 30 minutes prior to the sale, and despite my refreshing my browser at the exact given time, my spot in the queue for the Hawks game was #519,000. I don't know if they were that popular or if a bot was scooping them up. Last year when I attempted to get tickets, they had added another level of security. You had to enter a code that they sent to the registered email address 10 minutes before they assigned spots in the queue. My spot was still #240,000.

I'm not saying that Ticketmaster isn't involved with the scalpers. All I'm saying is that there isn't any evidence that they are and that the risk would far outweigh the benefit, making it very unlikely IMO.

[NorthHawk]

Money makes people do things that aren't in character with their normal selves, so anything could happen as we are talking about a large sum in total.
The DOJ must have something that is suspicious and worthy of advancing a case even if they are eventually not successful in their lawsuit.

[River_Dog]

Money makes people do things that aren't in character with their normal selves, so anything could happen as we are talking about a large sum in total.
The DOJ must have something that is suspicious and worthy of advancing a case even if they are eventually not successful in their lawsuit.

First of all, we're not talking about a person, we're talking about a very large, multi-billion-dollar publicly traded company with a 70% market share, so why on Earth would they want to risk that position by making a policy decision that was illegal? Or do you believe that there's some sort of rogue, underground network within Ticketmaster that's operating behind the curtains?

Secondly, I wouldn't make the assumption that because the DOJ has filed charges that they must have something substantial. This is an election year, and there's a very real possibility that at the very least, the DOJ is overreaching in order to promote their boss's candidacy.

This is one of the reasons why I've long advocated that the DOJ should not be part of the Executive Branch, but that's another story.

I still want to see some hard evidence instead of these very vague charges of threats and intimidation. Exactly who intimidated them? What was it that they said or wrote?

[Aseahawkfan]

A lot of people in WA buy as many tickets to popular events as allowed to scalp them. Some are sport events or concerts, but some are PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) or other popular events like Sakuracon. I have no idea what ticket service they go through and there are limits on what an individual can buy, so the upside is limited.

[River_Dog]

A lot of people in WA buy as many tickets to popular events as allowed to scalp them. Some are sport events or concerts, but some are PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) or other popular events like Sakuracon. I have no idea what ticket service they go through and there are limits on what an individual can buy, so the upside is limited.

I went into the Ticketmaster website for the Hawks game vs. Denver, the max number of tickets on the drop-down box is 8. On Stub Hub, it's 17. Vivid Seats had 8+ at the bottom of their number of tickets selection. That seems like a lot to me. When I went to try to buy tickets for the Munich games via Ticketmaster Europe, the max was 6 per account/email address.

It seems to be a problem limited to these high demand events, that scalpers will buy them up then make a killing re-selling them. It's not going to be a problem in games featuring two teams with 2-10 records.

I wouldn't be against the govt. stepping in and regulating things like long term contracts between the ticket vender and the artist/team or limiting the maximum number they can sell to one individual. But I just can't see how breaking up Ticketmaster is going to solve the problem.

[yoder]

Y'all hear about this, massive data breach.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ticketmaster-breach-shinyhunters-560-million-customers/

Edit: Check your bank accounts!

[Aseahawkfan]

I really hate hackers.

[River_Dog]

Y'all hear about this, massive data breach.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ticketmaster-breach-shinyhunters-560-million-customers/

Edit: Check your bank accounts!

I saw that. Hard to tell if they really did hack the system or if they're just blowing smoke.

I don't store my CC info on sites that I don't use very often, and I really don't care if they steal my email or mailing address.