Tickets Always Available at a Price
Want to sell tickets? Tigers demand a cut
BY JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
October 13, 2006
Fans who buy Tigers playoff tickets get stern warnings: Don't even think about scalping them.
In fact, peddle your ducats on the grounds of Comerica Park and you might be prosecuted and booted off the property. Season-ticket holders who get caught reselling to buddies or outside brokers can have their ticket privileges revoked by the team.
The tough talk applies to everyone. Well, almost everyone. Turns out, the Tigers can be swayed -- for a price.
For instance, the rules don't apply to the owner of two choice seats in Section 121, right behind the visitors dugout, who was asking Thursday a mere $1,650 each for tickets to this afternoon's game against the Oakland Athletics.
The rules don't apply to the person offering two seats near the leftfield line in Section 138 for Saturday's game -- at $990 a pop.
In fact, the rules don't apply to a whole group of people.
What makes them so special? They're season-ticket holders who resell their tickets on the official Tigers Web site.
That's right. An outfit that perennially warns fans not to resell tickets has gotten into the business itself. And the Tigers even take a cut of fans' profits to do it.
The Ticket Exchange, as it is called on Tigers.com, is new for the team this year. And postseason ticket mania has brought it into focus, as hordes of seats have been posted with prices as exorbitant as those for seats you might find on an unofficial broker's site.
The Tigers take a per-sale fee that spokeswoman Karen Cullen put at "under 10%."
"Brokers are making money off of our product," Cullen said. "I think that's the easiest way to say it. They don't invest in the field. They don't invest in the team.
"If they take those tickets and then make a boatload of money ... that doesn't seem fair to us."
If you knew nothing about this, you haven't read the back of a ticket lately. Take a look. Maybe get a magnifying glass. See the tiny type?
"No offer to sell or resell any ticket is permitted ... except through the Official Website of Major League Baseball."
Cullen said it's a way to fight back. And the Tigers say because they handle the sale, it's a more secure way for buyers and sellers to operate.
"If you want to legally take care of your tickets and sell your seats to another fan, you have to do it through Major League Baseball," she said.
Online ticket operations like StubHub and smaller local brokers like Richard Roth of Farmington Hills have long taken heat for what critics call scalping tickets.
The Tigers and other sports teams send out warnings about ticket brokers and even question their integrity.
On Thursday, some of those folks said they smelled a little hypocrisy.
"Everybody gets jealous. They all want to make a buck," Roth said of the Tigers.
StubHub spokesman Sean Pate said it's just competition.
But in the end, it comes down to "who owns a ticket?" Pate said. "What gives the team the right to say, 'You know what, Joe Fan? I'm going to sell you a ticket, but you don't own it.' "
Contact JIM SCHAEFER at 313-223-4542 or jschaefer@freepress.com.
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