The Red Sox take on the scalpers:
Fans with seats in the $12 upper bleacher section for high-demand games will receive only digital tickets. They will be required to swipe the credit card used to purchase them at the gate.
Fenway Park is the oldest ballpark in baseball, and it is also among the most expensive. The Red Sox say they’ve left the upper bleacher seats below market price to help families get into the ballpark. But that also makes it a lucrative option for the resale market.
The biggest worry about scalpers is that the Red Sox don’t play well, and are no longer a hot ticket. I would not be surprised, however, if this was a dry run in an effort to expand this to all tickets and drive the secondary market out of business. Of course, technology cuts both ways. I can see the scalpers buying single use credit cards and selling those.
MLB (and the Red Sox org) has no incentive to drive the secondary market out of business; it has lots of incentive to drive the secondary market to officially sanctioned StubHub, though.
It took you, what, three minutes to come up with the single use card idea? I’m sure the scalpers are way ahead of this.
Of course, one big drawback is that it cuts out any gift giving.
Not sure I see the brokers beating this system. With Ticketmaster the cardholder must swipe the physical card and enter the building immediately with the entire party. No more grabbing tickets at will call and running off to the parking lot.
The Red Sox and MLB are partners with the secondary market. What the Red Sox are doing here is simply limiting the supply of cheap seats on the secondary market for high demand games to force folks to buy the more expensive seats at significantly higher prices than the list price.
Furthermore, whatever cut the Red Sox get from Ace who is their official legal scalper, it likely is not subject to revenue sharing if the proceeds are funneled to one of it’s affiliates.
The secondary market is also likely a way to keep the sell out streak alive as all unsold tickets can get dumped on the secondary market and counted as sold, and the cost deducted from their cut of the tickets sold.
Also, nobody in their right mind would sit in the upper bleachers with their families. That’s definitely not a place for youngsters.