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Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

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Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#31

Post by aianus »

travmatt wrote: post #23
chrisseaton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't relate to any of the arguments in this thread! Why does it need to be fair? It's a private business putting on an event that nobody needs to go to except as a luxury entertainment. It's not access to food and water. We don't expect that other limited luxuries should be available to everyone, so why concerts and sport events? Surely tickets going to the people who'll pay the most is fair?

Wouldn't this be case-by-case? That argument makes perfect sense if we're talking about a bar hosting a band, but I can't apply that same logic to a stadium whose cost was largely borne by taxpayers with the promise it would enrich public life.

> but I can't apply that same logic to a stadium whose cost was largely borne by taxpayers with the promise it would enrich public life.

Maybe if they charged market rates for tickets the taxpayers wouldn't have to pay for the stadium.

Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#32

Post by danbruc »

aianus wrote: post #29
danbruc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if the supply of tickets is lower than the demand, which it obviously is, tickets will essentially only go to the people able to spend the most money on them.

That's no different than now, except the money will go to the artists and producers and not some useless middleman with a fast web scraper.

Now I am bit confused. Yes, on the consumer side there will be no big difference as compared to the current situation but don't we agree that the current situation is not good or at least not optimal?

Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#33

Post by wlesieutre »

geodel wrote: post #30

I think this is like asking for 'Right to redressal for hurt feelings'. Simple economic logic dictates that those who pay highest for music/sporting events get privilege to watch that live. These fans seems to be asking for Right to watch live. What if less popular artists/sports teams ask for Right to Audience? I think government should start looking into that also after all there must be lots of mediocre artists/sp…

That is one solution for how to distribute a good that's available in limited quantities. It's not the only solution, or necessarily the "best" solution for any given circumstance.

Other examples include "Who's willing to wait in a 15 minute line for the water fountain," "Enter a lottery for the limited number of season football tickets," and "Only people with an even numbered license plate can buy gas today."

I think there are longer-term factors for the NBA here. If your fans can't get reasonably priced tickets to any of the games they're excited about because of scalping, some percent of them are going to get fed up and do something else with their lives. The NBA gets long term value out of fans being able to connect with their brand at the prices that the NBA is setting, but scalpers are scraping up the benefits from both sides and pocketing it.

NBA doesn't get the money that they could have earned by charging higher prices, and fans don't have a shot at affordable access to events.

Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#34

Post by burkaman »

chrisseaton wrote: post #12
mmastrac wrote: post #6

It feels like the ticketing process in general is broken. There's too much demand for events, making the entire market dysfunctional. Why don't we 1) make tickets non-transferrable (but refundable), 2) start pricing half the tickets as what the person will pay via auction and the other half as a fixed-price lottery? I'm not aware of many other ways to make things fair when demand outstrips supply so much.

I can't relate to any of the arguments in this thread! Why does it need to be fair? It's a private business putting on an event that nobody needs to go to except as a luxury entertainment. It's not access to food and water. We don't expect that other limited luxuries should be available to everyone, so why concerts and sport events? Surely tickets going to the people who'll pay the most is fair?

I guess I just don't want to live in a world where everything non-essential is only available to people who can pay the most. I don't think it should be illegal to act like a capitalist robot, but I hope that some people choose not to when they can, because it makes the world a little more pleasant.

Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#35

Post by burkaman »

Glyptodon wrote: post #27

Nontransferable tickets seem terrible, mostly because they screw regular people as much as "devious resellers." Would no longer be possible to gift tickets or recover costs in the case of an unexpected cancellation. I'm more curious why they have to be sold on a FCFS basis rather than an auction or via random selection.

If you just make them refundable then only the resellers get screwed.

Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#36

Post by karzeem »

danbruc wrote: post #26
karzeem wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how almost all goods in the world are allocated. Is a lottery more fair?

If the demand for hamburgers exceeds the supply, then the market will hopefully do its thing and supply more hamburgers. On the other hand supplying a few more copies of your favorite band or sports team is not going to happen any time soon. Whether a lottery would be more fair depends on your point of few. Many would certainly say no because the artist or sports team would make less money than they could and people…

I'd suggest that a lottery is less fair even to the poor — it doesn't account at all for how badly someone wants a ticket, and to whatever extent it might be gameable, the poor will always be the least well-equipped to game it.

Also, while you can't clone Taylor Swift and put on 10 shows at once, if the full market value for popular tickets went to the people creating that value (instead of resellers), there are actually lots of ways the market could respond to increase supply. Taylor Swift could do more shows per city. Or more shows per day. Or livestream to multiple venues. Or build extensions on the venue. Or build new venues specifically for this kind of thing. The list goes on.

A giant band can't be duplicated exactly, but they do have lots of competition. They compete with other bands, the movie theater, a quiet night in, the bowling alley, etc. It's entertainment. So if floating ticket prices put the tickets out of reach of most fans, the market will find a way to increase supply. Otherwise the average fan goes bowling, and long term you lose your core fan base. The supply will increase to meet the demand. Maybe via one of the ideas above, and maybe via something that we can't even think of right now (and which someone will get rich for figuring out).

Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#37

Post by chrisseaton »

burkaman wrote: post #34
chrisseaton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't relate to any of the arguments in this thread! Why does it need to be fair? It's a private business putting on an event that nobody needs to go to except as a luxury entertainment. It's not access to food and water. We don't expect that other limited luxuries should be available to everyone, so why concerts and sport events? Surely tickets going to the people who'll pay the most is fair?

I guess I just don't want to live in a world where everything non-essential is only available to people who can pay the most. I don't think it should be illegal to act like a capitalist robot, but I hope that some people choose not to when they can, because it makes the world a little more pleasant.

I understand that aspiration, but I still don't get why do people get so worked up about concerts and sport events in particular.

People would think it was very strange if BMW made available a proportion of their cars at a lower price, or if people got angry at swiss watches being resold at a profit.

Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#38

Post by dang »

chinathrow wrote: post #21

> A couple of my friends are scalpers. You have bad friends. Edit: Aren't scalpers viewed as the scum? Why the downvotes?

Probably because it wasn't substantive. There's also something uncivil about reducing a complex thing like lutefisk's comment to the most-easily-denounced bit, then denouncing it. It shuts down conversation instead of taking it in an interesting direction.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11837077 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#39

Post by [deleted] »

baddox wrote: post #28
syphilis2 wrote: post #25

A few years ago Louis CK started selling tickets for his shows exclusively from his website. His post announcing the process is worth a read. I bought tickets for that show from him and the process was as simple as he describes it. https://louisck.net/news/im-going-on-the-road

He certainly doesn't still exclusively do that. Tickets for his current tour are sold through Ticketmaster.

[deleted]

Re: Why You Can’t Get a Ticket to the NBA Finals

#40

Post by burkaman »

chrisseaton wrote: post #37
burkaman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I just don't want to live in a world where everything non-essential is only available to people who can pay the most. I don't think it should be illegal to act like a capitalist robot, but I hope that some people choose not to when they can, because it makes the world a little more pleasant.

I understand that aspiration, but I still don't get why do people get so worked up about concerts and sport events in particular. People would think it was very strange if BMW made available a proportion of their cars at a lower price, or if people got angry at swiss watches being resold at a profit.

Well, there's sort of some false advertising going on with ticket sales. BMWs just have a high price, if you pay it you get it. If they consistently advertised their cars at $15,000 but then allowed their friends to buy up their entire stock and resell it at $60,000 each, I think people would be more upset.

It's not so much about the price as it is about the product being dangled in front of your face and then snatched away whenever you try to grab it.

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