Comm 260 writer
Just one year ago, sellers were willing to sell. Students were willing to buy. Penn State football fans who were willing to do whatever it took to attend a game made it inside the gates to watch the game.
Those were all frequent sightings at Beaver Stadium only one season ago, when students who wanted to see a game were able to buy and sell tickets freely. In the middle of another winning season, Penn State football’s fans are forced to use a new paperless ticketing system.
The new system is disrupting the old system by no longer allowing students to sell tickets at market value, forcing many of them to hold onto seats they’d rather sell.
“It’s economically backwards,” said Dirk Mateer, a lecturer in Penn State’s economics department. “If a person is willing to sell a ticket at $150 and a person is willing to buy at $150, both parties are better off. They took that away from students this year.”
Instead of paper tickets, which students are able to sell at market value and buy at market value, resale is permitted only on a Ticketmaster-hosted web site that governs the process. Students may only sell a maximum of six tickets, to deter them from selling all of their seats to make a profit.
Mateer said that dictating a minimum and maximum price — otherwise known as price floors and price ceilings — will hurt people buying and selling depending on the game,” Mateer said.
“During a hot game, sellers will be hurt by the policy. A lesser game might hurt buyers. It’s a lose-lose scenario,” Mateer said.
Penn State’s athletic department could not be reached for comment; however Greg Myford, associate athletic director at Penn State, said in a statement that he believes there is a clear benefit to the process.
“The elimination of paper game tickets and implementation of new ticketing system that will use student ID cards for game entry is believed to have kept students who wanted to resell tickets from participating in the (season ticket sale),” Myford said in the statement.
Not all students are comfortable with the new online system, which links students’ identification cards with their tickets.
“The site is impossible to use,” said Ben Burgess, 20, of Philadelphia. “I didn’t get season tickets, and now it’s impossible for me to get to see any of the good games this year.”
Burgess said he was “shut out” trying to find a ticket to the Sept. 26 Iowa-Penn State game, because no student was willing to sell theirs for the amount required by the student ticket exchange web site.
Andrew Hoffer is one student who was not willing to part with his Iowa ticket.
“Honestly, I was hoping to get back home for the weekend and make some money off the ticket,” Hoffer, 19, of Palmyra said. “But I wasn’t going to sell it for $60. I just stayed the weekend and went to see the game.”
Christian Dorflinger, 21, of East Stroudsburg, is a senior this year, yet he was unable to go to the biggest games of the year because of the lack of tickets available.
“I’m willing to pay for them like I did last year,” Dorflinger said. “I haven’t even tried to get them this year, though. The system doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Despite the possibly backward economics of the new system, students have found a loophole that allows them to sell tickets at higher prices.
Forwarding, or sending the rights to the tickets electronically, is one way sellers are able to scalp tickets successfully. Parties can agree to a higher than allowed price on the side and forward the ticket.
“If you can find someone willing to pay, you can meet up and forward them your ticket,” said Lacie Fuller, 19, of Pittsburgh. “I bought an Ohio State seat for $100 a week ago and I was happy to pay that much for such a big game.”
The problem facing the athletic department is that supply and demand both exist, however setting a maximum price doesn’t allow both parties to get the most out of a transaction, Mateer, the economics lecturer said.
Despite this, Myford insisted that the paperless ticket offering has worked in the past.
“We already tested the system this past basketball season and it worked quite well,” Myford said.
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