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December 4, 2009
When the Home Team Stinks, So Does the Scalping Business
The New York Times
by Patrick McGeehan
To the list of world's toughest jobs, add this one: scalper of Nets' tickets.
On the spectrum of public esteem, ticket scalpers have seldom stood far from three-card monte dealers. But if ever there were a scalper who deserved pity, the white-haired man in the parking lot outside the Izod Center in New Jersey might just have been the one.
He was the only scalper brave or foolish enough to be hawking tickets Wednesday night to see the New Jersey Nets, a team that was about to redefine early season ineptitude in the National Basketball Association. Of course, he was not asking much, just half or a fourth of what the Nets claimed the seats were worth.
Still, few of the fans trickling by broke stride as he said, “Anybody need tickets?” Of the people who approached him, as many were selling unwanted tickets of their own as were looking to buy.
Some wanted to bargain him down to $8 or even $7 — less than they had just paid to park their cars.
Such is the plight of the men trying to make a living dealing basketball tickets in a season of despair.
...In contrast to the extraordinarily high asking prices that can be found on StubHub for tickets to hot concerts or World Series games, the market for Nets and Knicks tickets has nearly hit bottom. Mr. Piacenti pointed out that on Tuesday, seats for that night’s Knicks game were available for as little as $4.99, plus fees. Somebody was offering nine tickets to the Nets’ game against Golden State on Wednesday for $1 each, before fees.
Deals like that have left the white-haired scalper in the Izod Center lot lonely and dejected.
He said he was not surprised that he had no competitors.
NoLandGrab: "No competitors?" Au contraire, mon frere. You have a huge competitor — the Nets Chief Ticket Giveaway Officer, Brett Yormark. When plenty of tickets can be had for $0, it's kinda hard to sell them for $10. But better an out-of-work scalper than the guy who paid $125 a game for his season ticket, sitting next to a bunch of folks who paid zilch.
Oh, and one note to the reporter: "the Nets’ expected move to Brooklyn in 2011" won't happen until the fall of 2012 — at the soonest.
Posted by eric at December 4, 2009 11:32 AM