As baseball fever sweeps Toronto, resellers are taking advantage by offering World Series tickets in the nosebleeds for $2,500 each.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Politicians are jumping on the Blue Jays bandwagon, tapping into frustration about ticket prices for the World Series. Those lucky enough to get a face-value ticket for a Toronto game paid as little as $350, but profit-seeking resellers are now offering tickets in the nosebleeds for $2,500 each.
The problem is obvious, the solution much less so. The Ontario NDP wants to ban the resale of tickets above face value, while the provincial Liberals want to bring back a cap that would limit resale ticket prices to 50 per cent above face value. Premier Doug Ford is musing about introducing price caps, despite his Progressive Conservative government having repealed such a cap in 2019, saying it was unenforceable.
Mr. Ford had it right the first time. While price caps sound good, they are a simplistic solution that won’t stop soaring ticket prices. Jurisdictions that have tried price caps or bans on selling above face value have found they are difficult to enforce. One study by New York’s Department of State compared high-demand concerts for the same artists in nearby states with price caps. There was no evidence those states had lower resale prices, and the pricing routinely exceeded the caps.
Quebec’s ban on reselling tickets for higher than the original price didn’t help fans wanting to see soccer star Lionel Messi in 2024. Tickets were advertised for as much as $10,000 as the ban applies only to merchants, not individuals. Manitoba lifted its ban on ticket reselling at higher prices in 2023, saying it couldn’t control sales from outside the province.
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Price caps can also push consumers to unregulated sites with no consumer protection. In Ireland, which has strict ticket resale laws, some sports fans seeking tickets to a Dublin NFL game fell prey to scams on social media.
Some concert tickets are sold using dynamic pricing, where prices rise with demand, reducing profits for resellers and ensuring more money goes to the artist. But as the British rockers Oasis discovered, fans tend to chafe at the high prices and unpredictability.
Attempts to make non-transferrable tickets have been circumvented by tech-savvy resellers. Requiring attendees to prove their identity at an event can be cumbersome and prevents fans who can’t attend from reselling their tickets.
Many tickets are scooped up by bots before regular buyers can get their hands on them, so legislation banning these automated programs might seem to make sense. But again, it’s hard to enforce – provinces such as Ontario and B.C. already have bans, yet the problem persists.
Ticketmaster, by far the most dominant seller of tickets, says it’s spent more than US$1-billion fighting bots, but it could do more to get more tickets directly into the hands of fans. Last month, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, alleging it allowed resellers to get around ticket limits. The suit says the resellers then resold them at higher prices on Ticketmaster, resulting in the company profiting from fees a second time.
Longtime Toronto Blue Jays supporter Sameia Hussain and her son describe how a watch party at the Nathan Phillips Square for Game 1, of the World series, which Toronto won, became even sweeter on Friday night. (Oct. 24)
Pressure from regulators and class-action lawsuits are having some impact on Ticketmaster, which says it will crack down on resellers using multiple accounts. It recently announced it would shut down part of its TradeDesk platform, which makes it easier for resellers to sell big batches of concert tickets, although the company still allows sports and theatre tickets to be resold on the platform. Regulators such as Canada’s Competition Bureau, which successfully went after Ticketmaster for misleading buyers about fees, could do more to prevent abuses of power in the marketplace.
Ultimately, more competition would be a powerful, if partial, remedy. The Competition Bureau should take a look at the exclusive sales deals that Ticketmaster has signed with major entertainment and sporting venues, for instance. Ending such arrangements could open up the marketplace to the benefit of consumers.
The reality is there will always be unscrupulous ticket resellers – back in 1901, one New York City magistrate complained about “evil” speculators robbing theatregoers – and the implacable laws of economics, with a fixed supply of tickets and spike in demand from fans. Policy-makers should address the worst excesses, but there is no home-run solution.