Someone Else Tried this Already

The secondary market for all sports and concerts has to be getting close to exceeding the primary market. Depending on the event, we are certain that it is (e.g. Hannah Montana). The bigger the event, the high the probability the secondary market exceeds it.

The secondary market has been there long enough and is big enough that who ever owns the primary, has to be thinking about how they can get a bigger piece of the secondary.

MLB for several years tried to contain it on a team by team basis. Each team made its own secondary exchange. Some used TicketMaster, some built their own applications and some used other third parties. There were many rules about how each exchange worked. At the end of the day, none of them worked very well. Whenever they tried to corral the secondary market, they could not. Starting in 2008, MLB made some changes. Most every team went along with Stubhub being the “official” exchange. This worked well for everyone. Many of the tickets were out there anyway. The tickets were out there because that is where the buyers were. The MLB teams just picked up a percentage of everything along the way. Essentially – MLB went to the market instead if trying to force the market to come to it. Saying they need to “authenticate the tickets” was not a good enough reason.

Now onto the NFL.

This last week the NFL announced they were creating a ticket exchange with TicketMaster so they could “authenticate the tickets and guarantee delivery". Couple this with the approach of some teams (New England Patriots) who revoked season ticket license of some fans who resold their tickets, this smells of the NFL trying to force the market to come to them.

Does anyone think this will work? It will stay this way for at least a couple of seasons. The sellers will go where the buyers are. The new marketplace cannot compete with the marketing and market-share dominance of eBay, Stubhub, TicketsNow and TicketDirect.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2008-08-06-secondary-tickets_N.htm

http://www.upi.com/Sports_News/2008/08/07/NFL_set_to_initiate_ticket_exchange_effort/UPI-94221218122295/

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