ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 9, 1997 TAG: 9701100035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: What's On Your Mind?
SOURCE: RAY REED
Q: Why is it illegal to scalp tickets to sporting events but it's OK to "scalp" items like Tickle Me Elmo and Nintendo 64 games?
R.K., Roanoke
A: Scalping is an issue of trust vs. suspicion.
People get leery of the legitimate seller and everyone who's in the chain (or might be) of taking a markup on the price.
Surely you heard the stories about Elmo before Christmas: "An employee at Store X saw a cartful of Elmos in the stock room but they never went out on the floor. Everyone assumed they found their way to the black market for $75 apiece."
True or not, many folk have learned to suspect the worst.
Scalping is a fuzzy issue. Corporate marketers employ the same techniques as small-time operators, leaving fewer tickets available at face value.
Two public officials in Roanoke, where ticket scalping is illegal, couldn't recall why the law was passed. It's never come to court, in their memory.
It's come into the marketplace, though.
Fifty people stand in line to buy Garth Brooks concert tickets for $18 and resell them to a dealer in another state. Is that scalping? Maybe, but a local law can't reach into another state.
If that dealer offers the tickets to people willing to pay $100, is that scalping? Definitely, but who's going to complain? Certainly not the buyer.
When hot tickets are bundled into travel packages and sold for hundreds of dollars, that's not scalping. Or is it?
Corporations buy up tickets to professional games to use in their customer relations programs, but that's not scalping. Not on the surface, anyway.
Colleges acquire blocks of tickets to the NCAA Final Four for their contributors. Corporate sponsors hold other blocks, and only 20 percent of the tickets may be left for the public to buy in a lottery. Is this scalping, or just greasing the fund-raising channels?
Some folk would argue that scalping tickets is free enterprise.
Just in case we need help remembering why scalping laws were passed, here's a view from Wayne Burrow at NCAA headquarters in Kansas.
Burrow used to be a college ticket manager in Texas, and he said scalping creates an image problem where some people pay exorbitant prices to sit beside someone who paid much less.
Scalping "will backfire down the line. It creates fan distrust and fan disloyalty."
"Our goal in sports is to attract as many people as possible and make it an affordable event by setting prices in a business sense, at what the market will bear.
"Any time somebody falsely raises that, you alienate your core support for future events. It depletes a large customer base and repeat sales. It turns off customers," Burrow said.
That's why ticket-scalping laws were passed. Now they're rarely remembered or enforced because the big boys are doing it.
Why aren't there scalping laws for hot dolls at Christmas? Perhaps because a manufacturer like Mattel can turn out more Elmos, but there's a low ceiling on extra seats for an NCAA Final Four or a Garth Brooks concert.
Got a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Call us at 981-3118. Or, e-mail RayR@Roanoke.Infi.Net. Maybe we can find the answer.
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