Ticket Resale Question

[PatsFanDan]

First post here in forever so I apologize in advance for the long diatribe.

Have a question for fellow season ticket holders or anyone that might know any general information with respects to my question.

If there is already a thread, I apologize but did a quick scan of the board and didn't find what I was looking for.

I just recently learned that the manner season ticket holders could resell tickets online (formerly thru the Pats) has changed, and it's now via the NFL ticket exchange and of course ticketmaster.

The good - I was pleasantly surprised that you are now able to resell preseason tickets.

But now the bad and on to my question. So I live in NC and have been reselling any tickets that don't get used through the years via the Patriots. Largely because I didn't want to deal with the Pats yanking my tickets for either selling to some assclown stranger that had one too many drinks and got removed and/or for violating scalping rules etc etc.

But recently I decided to try to buy some extra seats for some family members for one of the games we were going to attend and lo and behold everyone reselling their seats via ticketmaster is price gouging like mad.

Now who could blame them but here comes my question and I have not been able to find much info aside from the little blurb from the Patriots that says you must obey Mass state laws when reselling your tickets.

Does anyone know if the price gouging of NFL tickets at Gillette is going to be policed by any agency whether it be the Patriots or Mass state law enforcement? Most of the going rates on this website even for not so great seats seem pretty off the charts. Not necessarily from a market price perspective but well above face value. And for a casual fan like my family member they are not going to spend that kind of dough to go to a game.

But I am also curious about the risks season ticket holders are taking on posting tickets at these crazy rates which at this point I am not intending to do but I can see why it would be so tempting to some.

So I am curious if there are there any local articles on this topic or any info out there I may have missed? No, I am definitely not Sherlock Holmes so any info anyone has would be appreciated. And yes it is also entirely possible I am just living in the dark ages with respects to this topic. But if I recall correctly it was not long ago the Pats seemed to actually look for reasons to pull your season tickets.

 

[bideau]

There are no legal ramifications for season ticket members reselling at any price on the NFL ticket exchange. There are no risks what so ever. Agencies like Ticketmaster, Ace Ticket, StubHub, etc have been legal and licensed for many years. It's not illegal for a licensed agency to resell at a profit, but it is illegal for us to stand on the street corner and try to resell them.

Personally, I have no issue with this new policy and, as a season ticket member, it's about time. The Pats were the last team to join the NFL Ticket Exchange. The reality is that the prior system was a huge money maker for the agency resellers (Ace, StubHub, etc). Did you ever notice that when you sold your tickets back to the Patriots that they would usually be sold within minutes? That's because the agencies were constantly scanning the site and buying up anything that popped up at face value, then turning around and reselling at huge markups. There was enough of a cry from the members for the Krafts to stop subsidizing the agencies.

I sold one preseason and 2 regular season games at a significant markup and probably could have asked for more. But there's a risk the ticket won't sell when for asking too much. Why should someone else be able to make a profit but not me? :shrug:

 

[PatsFanDan]

Interesting. Thanks for your response.