It’s no secret that tickets to the Olympics are hard to come by. Much like other super major huge sporting events, the secondary ticket market AKA scalpers are your best bet. But how do the scalpers get the tickets if they’re not yet on sale to the general public? Well, that’s what has the Vancouver Organizing Committee so peeved.
Unsurprisingly, many of the scalped tickets come from insiders and corporate sponsors. That has Dave Cobb, deputy CEO of the VANOC, making idle threats. Cobb says that they have the power to cancel all of the scalped tickets “with the push of a button.” That seems more like a threat than a solution as it could also punish those who purchase the tickets. Those in the secondary market are unfazed. One owner of a sports travel company said this about Cobb’s threats:
“It’s always been a joke. They put threats out there and everyone in the event world says, ‘Whatever.’ “
There’s only one ticket dealer in the United States that’s sanctioned to sell Olympic tickets. So it’s clear that Cobb has every right to attempt to control the secondary market. However, it seems counterintuitive to punish end consumers, who are paying well above face value to see the games, just to preserve the monopoly they’ve created. CoSports, the official ticket provider in the United States, and owner Sead Dizdarevic stand to make tens of millions of dollars off of ticket sales. Except CoSports paid the VANOC to slap consumers with a markup.
The other issue at hand is the family of those in the Olympic Games. One third of the tickets sold go to Olympic Family buyers at face value. The VANOC is trying to avoid “family” scalpers by flagging suspicious orders. In an ironic twist, they’ll also have to buy tickets from the ticket brokers in order to figure out who sold them into the secondary market in the first place.
It’s doubtful that the VANOC will be able to put a big dent in the scalping business. Rules and regulations do very little as the secondary market is fueled by supply and demand. The VANOC would probably be better off with a more sophisticated pricing and ticketing program rather than passing it off to a random slimy dude. Thanks for screwing over your neighbors, douchebags.
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