Marginal Revolution: Auto scalping??

Marginal Revolution: Auto scalping??:


Attention baseball fans and vertical integration researchers: The Chicago Cubs scalp their own tickets. I was recently pointed to the web page of a disgruntled fan (click here) who found out that a ticket re-seller is owned by the same company that owns Wrigley Field, the Tribune Company. And of course, the ticket reseller charges much more than the face value.

Me, I’m all for this. Even better, let’s standardize it — why should scalpers benefit from excess demand instead of the promoters and artists, anyway?

Auction software’s well-understood now. Take blocks of tickets that are similar, and dutch auction the silly things. Let people put a value on them, and see what happens. And let the revenue fall to those involved in the event, not those taking advantage of an inefficient market.

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