New England Patriots Obtain Online Ticket Reseller Names

Billosaur writes "The New England Patriots sued on-line ticket re-seller StubHub (a subsidiary of eBay) to obtain the list of names of people who tried to buy or sell Patriots tickets using the service. StubHub lost an appeal in Massachusetts state court last week, and was compelled to hand over the list of 13,000 names. It is currently not clear what the Patriots organization intends to do with the names, but they have intimated that they may revoke the privileges of any season ticket holders on the list. The Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group, said the court order to turn over the names infringes on the privacy rights of Patriots fans. At issue is whether using the on-line service allows an end-run around team rules and Massachusetts state law, by allowing ticket holders to charge extreme mark-ups on their tickets." How does this ruling apply to other pieces of transient property?

To be fair...

[SRA8 (859587)]

in a fair society, venues would be able to set prices at market prices, thus eliminating the need for entities such as stub-hub. However, setting prices at market would likely cause an uproar, so why should anyone have sympathy for organizations/individuals trying to profit from charity to society?

Re:

[wizbit (122290)]

Bingo. I'm an occasional user of StubHub when I need to grab a few extra tickets last-minute, but the gouging that goes on (think Hanna Montana) for highly desirable and rare events just turns the whole model on its head. This kind of exclusivity in the NFL is generally limited to the playoffs, but if you have a perennial champion like the Pats, or just a huge market like NYC, "average" fans get the shaft during the regular season as well.

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[m0rph3us0 (549631)]

With out the gouging the tickets would be unavailable for purchase. Thus you would have NO TICKETS. Fans don't "get the shaft" they get tickets at a price they are willing to pay.

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[toriver (11308)]

If the gougers did not hoard tickets for resale, those tickets WOULD be available for purchase. It's precisely because non-fans bought them that they are unavailable to fans.

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[The One and Only (691315)]

You're trying to tell me that of the tens of millions of football fans in America, and of the millions of football fans in the New England area, the best team in the NFL wouldn't sell out their entire stadium at $50 per ticket making it impossible for anyone other than camp-out-overnight and compulsive-webpage-reloading fans to get tickets?

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Is there a system where you need to provide ID that you bought the tickets?

Something like;
Paul Johnsmith buys 5 tickets, states he's the leader so all 5 of the tickets have "Johnsmith group".
At entry presenting "Johnsmith Group" tickets, the father, Paul Johnsmith proves he's the group leader and they let him in.

Paul buys 5 tickets, states he's the only person so the ticket has "Paul".
At entry presenting "Paul" ticket, the father, Paul proves he's the owner.

Then the ticket sellers could introduce a new serv

Re:

[kiatoa (66945)]

What baffles me is the same people who are so religious about the magic of the free market get so indignant when tickets get marked up 1000% by a scalper. Either embrace the free market and accept the associated consequences or accept the fact that the free market doesn't always yield the most optimal solution to all social and economic problems. Tickets (to sporting events) and oil need the same treatment in my opinion. Tax away the *unearned* profits. I.e. pay the bills, give the investors a reasonable ch

Re:To be fair...

[Peter Cooper (660482)]

so why should anyone have sympathy for organizations/individuals trying to profit from charity to society?

Charity? I don't think sports teams are being "charitable" per-se for selling tickets at under market rate.. they do it to enforce their brand and keep up the excitement in customers who can't get tickets due to overdemand and who will then try to fight for them next time.

They should just sell the damn things for market rate. I don't see beachside condos or Mercedes Benz cars being sold at under market simply to keep the proles happy.

Re:To be fair...

[wizbit (122290)]

And I don't see any car dealerships selling Maybach jerseys. There's a bigger market than just tickets, and it's overwhelmingly driven by the middle class. Make it impossible for blue collar fans to attend a game and you drive down merchandising opportunities elsewhere. The NFL already has what's mostly become an exclusively white collar event - it's called the Super Bowl.

Re:To be fair...

[walt-sjc (145127)]

It's against the law in Mass. to resell a ticket for more than face value plus a small fee (which is like $2 or something...) That's why they were able to go after stubhub.

I would only want to hide my name if

[andy314159pi (787550)]

I would really only want to hide my name if I'd bought season tickets for the Dolphins.

Re:

[LaskoVortex (1153471)]

I couldn't help reply to someone who stands up for their team so adamantly yet so ANONYMOUSLY.

It's all about the markup...

[Cryophallion (1129715)]

The issue is the fact that they are selling the tickets above the face value.

If I remember correctly, here in MA is is completely legal to resell tickets - just not for profit.

Our local sports teams have more than just a few insanely loyal fans who will do just about anything to see a game. People try to take advantage of this, which results in prices nearing mortage levels (and at 300k for a 2 bed home in the suburbs here, that it quite a bit of money).

I'm all for people being enterprising and making a little money - say 10% or at most 20% above face value. But anything over that is taking advantage of the fans, and preying on their obsessive love of the sports they love.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Law says you can sell at face value + 10% max (not sure if your trading expences like postage are included)

Re:It's all about the markup...

[SnowZero (92219)]

If I remember correctly, here in MA is is completely legal to resell tickets - just not for profit.

If that's true, then law enforcement should be getting the list of names, not an NFL team. Are the Patriots now a law enforcement agency? Also, why do they need the list of people buying tickets?

I think scalping sucks too, but you really can't fight the market and pretend there isn't scarcity.

Re:It's all about the markup...

[Lord Kano (13027)]

The issue is the fact that they are selling the tickets above the face value.

Why in the fuck else would people create a marketplace for the buying and selling of tickets if not to make profit on it?

I'm all for people being enterprising and making a little money - say 10% or at most 20% above face value. But anything over that is taking advantage of the fans, and preying on their obsessive love of the sports they love.

The same can be said for coin or comic book dealers. Does it matter that Action Comics #1 originally cost $0.10? If some dork is willing to pay $250,000 for it now, there's nothing wrong with selling it at that price.

What teams make in endorsements, broadcast rights and merchandising is so substantial that they're already taking advantage of the fans by charging $50.00 or whatever per ticket.

It's pure economics, when there is great demand for a product that is in limited supply, prices will rise. There were jackasses who paid $2,500 for Playstation 3 consoles because that was the only way they could get them. Should Sony have been able to sue to prevent people from reselling things that they legitimately bought? Why is that any worse than selling tickets at higher prices? What would be wrong with having an auction? If two people want the same ticket and are willing to bid against each other to buy them, why should the owner of the ticket be kept from allowing them to do so?

LK

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[LordLucless (582312)]

I'm all for people being enterprising and making a little money - say 10% or at most 20% above face value. But anything over that is taking advantage of the fans, and preying on their obsessive love of the sports they love.

That's right. But why stop there? Why shouldn't the government force, say, Apple to sell their products for no more than 10-20% markup - after all, anything more than that is taking advantage of Apple fanboys, and trendies who just have to have the latest chic tech. And excessive marku

Re:It's all about the markup...

[LordLucless (582312)]

It's just the same as any other limited resource - it's just that that particular resource is limited enough that people can get a near-monopoly without significant investment. But in the end, its just the same as anything else - in fact, its the same thing we saw with the Playstation 3 earlier - limited supply, people grab up plenty, then flog em on eBay.

I don't really have any problem with pre-order limits, or conditions on tickets that invalidate them if they're not held by the purchaser, or any other sort of controls imposed by the retailer, within their authority. It's additional government controls that I don't particularly like.

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[clarkkent09 (1104833)]

I'm all for people being enterprising and making a little money - say 10% or at most 20% above face value. But anything over that is taking advantage of the fans, and preying on their obsessive love of the sports they love.

Sorry about the rant, but comments like this (and people who mod them up) drive me up the wall! Its amazing how many people simply don't this whole liberty business. Who exactly are you to decide how much profit someone else should make or not make? Should every business be restricted

$300K?! You should be so lucky!!

[Arthur Grumbine (1086397)]

$300,000 for a 2-bedroom home, you should be so lucky...

When I was young we had to pay $650,000 for 3 walls and a tarp for a roof, and we didn't even have a pro football team...

Oh wait...that's not when I was young. That's right now. Fucking Orange County.

Re:$300K?! You should be so lucky!!

[Chapter80 (926879)]

we had to pay $650,000 for 3 walls and a tarp for a roof, and we didn't even have a pro football team...

Oh wait...that's not when I was young. That's right now. Fucking Orange County.

Perhaps you should chose a different colour county.

Or is the county named after a copulating fruit?

Ironic?

[dotslashdot (694478)]

Isn't it ironic that the team allegedly invading privacy is called the Patriots?

Re:Ironic?

[shoemilk (1008173)]

Not after the PARTIOT Act...

What privacy?

[AHumbleOpinion (546848)]

Isn't it ironic that the team allegedly invading privacy is called the Patriots?

What privacy? These people gave their info to an online retailer, of course it is going to be shared with 3rd parties. The only thing different in this case is that the retailer is not getting paid to share the info.

Read it and weep

[davmoo (63521)]

the court order to turn over the names infringes on the privacy rights of Patriots fans

Too effing bad. Every sports related season ticket by any team in any sport always has rules attached. And if one of those rules is season ticket holders can't resell their tickets, then the franchise has every right to find out who is reselling and cut them off. If you don't like their rules, then don't buy their tickets. That's your only option.

It's not quite that simple

[Rix (54095)]

While I agree with you in principle, there's more to it than that.

The venue has every right to revoke these tickets. However, what's at issue is whether or not StubHub has any obligation to tell the venue which tickets are being sold. If they're not based in Massachusetts, the fact that what they're doing violates Massachusetts law is entirely irrelevant. Unless there's a federal law (or state law in the state they do operate in), they have every right to tell the venue to figure it out on their own.

If a st

Re:

[tm2b (42473)]

Uh, no. You're subject to the laws of a state if you do business in it - it should take little thought to see why this is necessary.

The question isn't whether they're based in Massachusetts, it's whether they're doing business in Massachusetts. And they are.

How so?

[Rix (54095)]

Are their offices in Massachusetts? Do they have any presence in Massachusetts?

If China bans baseball, should patriots.com be required to hand over a list of Chinese IPs which visited the site?

Re:

[_xeno_ (155264)]

It's not even slightly like pirating music or movies.

Tickets are by definition a scarce resource. There are a finite number of tickets for a finite number of seats, and once the tickets are all sold, that's it: there are no more tickets. Contrast that with pirating music which does not remove a copy of music from distribution.

I'm going to skip any moral argument, but suffice it to say that it's not a "victimless crime" as it really does remove items that would otherwise be available to "legitimate" purc

State Specific

[SlashdotOgre (739181)]

This is an interesting case, but scalping laws vary by state, so it should pretty much only apply to MA. In Cali, it's only illegal to resale if you do it on event premises (CA Penal Code 346) without permission. It may be less stringent than that (I seem to recall it needing to be on the day of the event for over face value to qualify, but I'm not sure and IANAL). Personally I hate professional scalpers, but at the same time I don't have a problem with some fan selling their seat (even for above face) i

Re:

[wizbit (122290)]

The Pats are specifically requiring fans to buy extra tickets through their ticket site, which goes out through TicketMaster, and enforces the face value of the ticket. I think that's as rational as the Pats could've been about the situation, don't you agree? If you're a Pats season ticket holder, do you really mean to tell me that you don't know a bunch of friends who'd gladly take the tickets off your hands without going through an online auction site?

Re:

[SlashdotOgre (739181)]

Yes, I agree what they're doing NOW (a point in time which they don't have a monopoly on the market) is great, however the Patriots, like every other NFL team (and for-profit business for that matter) are in the business to make a profit. There's no guarantee they'll continue this practice in the future (especially when they have no competition).

Re:

[SlashdotOgre (739181)]

At best case I'd hope they're only doing this to identify the ticket holders who buy tickets solely to scalp them for a profit. While they're playing nice now limiting the resale site to face value, we have no reason to expect them to always behave that way. I'm from California, and I have no clue what the current owner of the Patriots, Robert Kraft, is like. What I do know is one day he will not be the owner, and there's definitely no way of knowing how the next person (or group) will be, and I'd rathe

tickets sold for up to 10x what they are worth

[by Anonymous Coward]

FTFA

Team rules bar reselling game tickets for a profit. State law, though rarely enforced, restricts ticket markups to $2 above face value plus some service charges. Patriots tickets have been offered on StubHub at prices many times higher, including two 50-yard-line seats for New England's Dec. 16 game against the AFC rival New York Jets listed Thursday for $1,300.05 each. Their face value is $125.

StubHub, one of the largest online ticket sellers, argued that the Patriots' request violated its confidentiality agreement with its customers and said the team wants to create a monopoly on the resale market for its own tickets.

under state law tickets can be resold just at a very low profit though "the team rules" forbid any resale. that is anti-competitive though hording tickets and selling them at 10x what they are worth isn't any better. don't feel sorry for either side, neither is correct- both are screwing people over.

...what they are worth

[NotQuiteReal (608241)]

by definition tickets are worth what willing buyers will pay.

Seems to me the tickets are under-priced from the get-go.

There wouldn't be a problem if sports teams, concert venues, etc. just charged scalper like fees to begin with, then discounted the unsold tickets closer to the event time, if needed.

That gives all the profit to the right people, not artificial middle-men (scalpers).

season tickets

[niloroth (462586)]

well, as far as the whole season ticket issue goes, i wonder if part of getting the tickets is that you sign a contract with the team about what you can and can not do with those tickets. And if one of the things you can not do is resell them for a profit over the legal state limit, there might be some very worried season ticket holders out there right now. As a contrast to this, the philadelphia phillies use stubhub as their official 'reseller' and even sent out links to stubhub's website in some of thei

We need to do like we did for the airlines

[iminplaya (723125)]

We need the Department of Gameland Security. If you want a ticket, you must ask permission 72 hours in advance. Upon entering the stadium, you must show your passport or a government approved ID. Under the state's secrets act, you are prohibited from discussing the events. Woe to you who cheers for the wrong team. You will be placed on the "no seat list". See, this is why the airlines really want ID...to prevent you from selling your ticket. Don't be surprised to see it here also "for your protection".

Interesting counterpoint

[eln (21727)]

This story is an interesting counterpoint to the news that Major League Baseball has agreed [usatoday.com] to endorse StubHub as their official ticket reseller.

Personally, I'm torn on this issue. Basically, as a person on a fairly standard middle class income, it sucks that I'll likely never be able to attend major sporting events because scalpers quickly scoop up all of the tickets and price them out of range of the normal fan. On the other hand, if teams insist on building stadiums that don't hold the number of fans that would actually be willing to go to the games (for example, Invesco Field in Denver was built to almost exactly the same capacity as the old Mile High Stadium, even though waiting lists for season tickets there are decades long), it might make sense to let the free market determine the price of seats.

Personally, I think that scalping should be illegal, as scalpers essentially make their money by employing dirty tricks to corner the market on tickets, thereby possibly artificially inflating the cost of tickets. I understand the free market argument, but I think measures should be taken so we can be sure that fans at a game represent a true cross section of the fan base for the team, not just the ones that can afford $500 or more for tickets.

Ridiculous

[JoshJ (1009085)]

"Scalping" should be legal. I bought a ticket, I should be able to do as I wish with it. Neither the government nor the venue should be able to stop me.

GO CHARGERS!

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

GO CHARGERS!

*ducks*

Re:

[Dr. Eggman (932300)]

Dude, this is Slashdot. What are you ducking for?

Oh, Chargers, I see. Your ducking to avoid the hail of used batteries from you hated rivals, the Disposables! Carry on then...

Revoke the privileges?

[Cracked Pottery (947450)]

I kind of imagined that buying a season ticket entitled the buyer to something more than a privilege to attend games. I suppose they could give a prorated refund for unused tickets, but I doubt they would get very far "revoking" the ticket. I guess it's not a bad as "Hannah Montana" tickets, that the promoters seem to scalping themselves.

But it was Web 2.0 ticket scalping!

[Duncan3 (10537)]

Wait, you mean it's still a crime when it's Web 2.0.

No 2.0 way!!!

This was a bad call

[SleepyHappyDoc (813919)]

The people who tried (but didn't succeed) to buy tickets have undoubtedly had their privacy violated. Those names should have been excluded, since they've not completed any transactions with the team. I don't see what business the Patriots have with their names.

What is up with them?

[houghi (78078)]

Do they not believe in freedom of exchange of goods? Pure capatalist economics. Supply and demand.

Oh wait, this is Soviet America wher capitalism only is good if you are a big company.

Next you will see that Microsoft demands the name andress and phonenumber from each person who has ever downloaded a Linux distribution.

Also how much of a fight have they put up? "Give us the names." "Only if we have an order" "Here it is." is something different then "Give us the names" "You can have those names if you pry th

Mixed Feelings

[DavidD_CA (750156)]

I'm not 100% sure where I stand on issues like this.

A part of me gets sick when I go on eBay and find tickets for a concert or sporting event that is up for sale by a "professional" scalper. Especially annoying are when these tickets were obtained from a fan club membership, or sold out within minutes only to appear right on eBay. It makes it more expensive for a real fan to get decent seats.

Then the other part of me is a capitalist pig and says there's nothing wrong with that.

As for selling these season tickets... I don't see what the big deal is. People have done that for years, only now it's easier. They've also bought season tickets for the purpose of giving to clients (or prospects).

No First Sale doctrine?

[flyingfsck (986395)]

The fact is that the scalpers legally bought the tickets, so why may they not resell them? The only issue should be if they don't declare the income for tax purposes.

Re:

[Volante3192 (953645)]

There may be consumers willing to pay these prices, but I wager there's more consumers pissed off BY these prices that are actively complaining to the team.

Add to the fact that the *team* isn't seeing any of this 10x markup, and hell yes they're going to involve themselves, regardless. 'Regulation' be damned, they want their cut of that 10x marked up ticket.

Re:

[thatshortkid (808634)]

ahem.... MARTYR. you could have made your argument without the "i know i'm going to get modded down for being a republican, but...." crap.

this is about the pats, already a multi-billion-dollar generating business, wanting a cut of the gray market surrounding their product. there's no consumer advocacy going on here. it's corporate advocacy. in no place are there arguments for the people getting gouged. the argument is that the pats want a cut of the gouge.

ass.

Sorry.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul (629286)]

I guess I'm less optimistic than you. I just assume anytime I give my information to any entity they will sell, or give it to someone else. Which is why, I don't do it very often ... with my own name.