The StubHub home page prominently reads, "No surprise fees. Only good surprises." Anyone venturing to the fan-to-fan ticket marketplace owned by
The surprise surrounding the surge of ticket prices is justifiable. From January 2 through January 21, the 2015 Super Bowl re-sale market largely mimicked that of years' past, including the 2014 Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos. However, in 2014, the average ticket price for the Super Bowl actually dropped after January 21, while this year the price skyrocketed to its current unprecedented level.
As early as January 8, StubHub noticed that demand was surging for tickets to this year's Super Bowl. At that time, ticket sales were up 197% year-over-year (compared to the same time in 2014). On January 14, StubHub reported that demand continued to skyrocket, with ticket sales up an astounding 260% year-over-year, again compared to the same time last year. Then, on January 21, StubHub actually issued a memo that tickets were becoming more affordable. Average ticket prices decreased from $3,106 to $3,003 while the median ticket price dropped from $2,716 to $2,576 over the span of a week.
The decrease in Super Bowl ticket prices was not sustainable. On January 27, StubHub was back to showing Super Bowl ticket prices on the rise. A buyer from Arizona had bought four Lower Level Prime tickets for $10,000 each, a buyer from Washington bought four Club Level tickets for $10,000 and a buyer from New Mexico purchased two Club Level tickets for $11,500 each.
Fan loyalty: I've spoke with people being offered $30K for a pair of tickets to #SB49. See your team potentially win SB vs a lot of cash.
— Sports Biz Radio (@SBRadio) February 1, 2015
"The obvious question is, 'Why the dramatic increase in prices?'," said a representative from ticket search engine SeatGeek back on January 26. "It's due to speculative selling. It's common practice for ticket brokers to sell 'spec' tickets that they don't yet have in hand at higher prices, then wait for the market to drop so that they can purchase tickets to fulfill those 'spec' orders at lower prices, keeping the margin as profit."
Such a practice is essentially short selling. The problem with the tested technique is that this year there were signs of significantly more speculative selling that in recent years, especially with the least expensive upper-deck seats, some of which are still on the market as of Super Bowl Sunday.
Short sellers scrambled to buy tickets to fill their orders, which resulted in a short squeeze. Prices went through the roof and stayed there.
On January 26, the
That did not happen.
Now many fans who once thought they had tickets to see the Patriots take on the Seahawks are left with nothing but a worthless paper documenting a nonexistent transaction.
Darren Heitner is a lawyer and the Founder of South Florida-based HEITNER LEGAL, P.L.L.C., which has a focus on Sports Law and Entertainment Law.