11 ms·

And the soccer WC went the opposite direction, by encouraging scalping, giving it an official avenue, and taking a cut of the profits. Now only rich people get

by arw0n 4mo ago

And the soccer WC went the opposite direction, by encouraging scalping, giving it an official avenue, and taking a cut of the profits. Now only rich people get to enjoy a sport meant for the masses, yay.

buellerbueller 4mo ago
FIFA is corrupt, so this shouldn't be a surprise.
- ajmurmann 4mo ago
  To be fair, if FIFA wanted to maximize profits, they should auction tickets off instead of allowing scalpers to eat the delta between sales price and real value.
  - InitialLastName 4mo ago
    To be fair, GP said that FIFA is corrupt, not that FIFA is either profit-maximizing nor out to light the goose that lays the golden egg on fire. I know it's hard to imagine in the US, what with our quarterly-profit-maximizing corruption, but it is possible to be corrupt and still have to balance long-term concerns like "keep the graft flowing".
  - inigyou 4mo ago
    To be fair, most of the scalpers are FIFA.
  - dspillett 4mo ago
    The trick to getting away with being corrupt is to as corrupt as you can without your marks/customers/voters/whatever revolting¹. Switching ticket sales to an auction format would likely add enough friction that many people² wouldn't bother, bringing the price back down, or would make a very public noise about how unfair it feels. -------- [1] or authorities taking action, but that usually comes after the marks/customers/voters/whatever speaking up loud enough, unless by “taking action” you mean “taking a piece of the action” by way of being corruptible themselves. [2] from those who do, or might in future, play along with the current race-to-buy-at-fixed-teered-rates system.
ajmurmann 4mo ago
Well, there is a genuine problem with the WC that reselling solves. It's unclear till a few days before what team will be in which match. That said, I'd prefer the solution where tickets don't go on sale till it's clear which teams are in the match.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- universa1 4mo ago
  I think the actual solution is closer to, you buy a team specific ticket/option: if your team advances you get the ticket, if some other team advances their fans get the tickets.
alaudet 4mo ago
Actually, rich people and not so rich people who don't mind borrowing more than they can afford. I'm not rich by any means and there are much worse of than me dumping a couple months salary for the "experience". Not that there is a problem with it if that's what you enjoy. A bit over the top for my taste though.
baud147258 4mo ago
> Now only rich people get to enjoy a sport meant for the masses, yay. By and large, the masses have always experienced football on a TV screen. (though removing lower price tickets from such public sport events is still bad)
- Barrin92 4mo ago
  Not true at all. In many of the big football/soccer countries there's always been very strong measures to ensure affordability. England caps premier league prices, the Bundesliga goes further still by having a 50 + 1 rule, that is all teams are majority member owned. Up until ~2000 they had no private investors at all. The yardstick in European football has always been that an ordinary working person can go and see a game in the stadium. A fair amount of sports did until they got the privatization treatment.
greenavocado 4mo ago
They can keep it and society will be better off.
jmye 4mo ago
> Now only rich people get to enjoy a sport meant for the masses, yay. I'm so tired of people trying to pretend that limited tickets to an event billions of people want to attend ought to be available to poor people just because. If they sold for a penny, the resale market would eat them up and they'd still cost what they cost. If you'd bought them for $10, you'd instantly turn around and sell them for a few thousand to someone else. I'm sorry no one prepared you for the fact that rare things have value, but perhaps some introductory economics classes, instead of TikTok-trite-internet-rage would be helpful.
- drdexebtjl 4mo ago
  Perhaps if you could find economics professsors that agree with each other, I would. Not everything must be race to the bottom. Not everything should be a fucking market. If only rich snobs and people with poor financial control can afford your tickets, that will be the type of fan you’ll retain.
  - scott_w 4mo ago
    Ironically it’s the thing that will destroy many sports. People worldwide watch the premier league for the atmosphere. That comes from working class people singing and following their team. There’s a reason Newcastle fans out-sing the home crowd at Old Trafford every year, even when we’re losing.
    - drdexebtjl 4mo ago
      Same thing applies to live music. If I pay high prices for your tickets and for travel to see you play in one of your limited selection of touring cities, sure, I might go. But if you tour again a few years later, I would rather see an artist I haven’t seen live yet. Meanwhile if the tickets are affordable, I’ll try and go again. You’ll have my renewed interest every time.
      - inigyou 4mo ago
        If you pay ten times the price for a ticket and go one fifth as much, they win.
swader999 4mo ago
A stadium full of rich fans makes for a boring event typically.

by arw0n 4mo ago

buellerbueller 4mo ago

FIFA is corrupt, so this shouldn't be a surprise.

ajmurmann 4mo ago
To be fair, if FIFA wanted to maximize profits, they should auction tickets off instead of allowing scalpers to eat the delta between sales price and real value.
- InitialLastName 4mo ago
  To be fair, GP said that FIFA is corrupt, not that FIFA is either profit-maximizing nor out to light the goose that lays the golden egg on fire. I know it's hard to imagine in the US, what with our quarterly-profit-maximizing corruption, but it is possible to be corrupt and still have to balance long-term concerns like "keep the graft flowing".
- inigyou 4mo ago
  To be fair, most of the scalpers are FIFA.
- dspillett 4mo ago
  The trick to getting away with being corrupt is to as corrupt as you can without your marks/customers/voters/whatever revolting¹. Switching ticket sales to an auction format would likely add enough friction that many people² wouldn't bother, bringing the price back down, or would make a very public noise about how unfair it feels. -------- [1] or authorities taking action, but that usually comes after the marks/customers/voters/whatever speaking up loud enough, unless by “taking action” you mean “taking a piece of the action” by way of being corruptible themselves. [2] from those who do, or might in future, play along with the current race-to-buy-at-fixed-teered-rates system.

ajmurmann 4mo ago

Well, there is a genuine problem with the WC that reselling solves. It's unclear till a few days before what team will be in which match. That said, I'd prefer the solution where tickets don't go on sale till it's clear which teams are in the match.

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
universa1 4mo ago
I think the actual solution is closer to, you buy a team specific ticket/option: if your team advances you get the ticket, if some other team advances their fans get the tickets.

alaudet 4mo ago

Actually, rich people and not so rich people who don't mind borrowing more than they can afford. I'm not rich by any means and there are much worse of than me dumping a couple months salary for the "experience". Not that there is a problem with it if that's what you enjoy. A bit over the top for my taste though.

baud147258 4mo ago

> Now only rich people get to enjoy a sport meant for the masses, yay. By and large, the masses have always experienced football on a TV screen. (though removing lower price tickets from such public sport events is still bad)

Barrin92 4mo ago
Not true at all. In many of the big football/soccer countries there's always been very strong measures to ensure affordability. England caps premier league prices, the Bundesliga goes further still by having a 50 + 1 rule, that is all teams are majority member owned. Up until ~2000 they had no private investors at all. The yardstick in European football has always been that an ordinary working person can go and see a game in the stadium. A fair amount of sports did until they got the privatization treatment.

greenavocado 4mo ago

They can keep it and society will be better off.

jmye 4mo ago

> Now only rich people get to enjoy a sport meant for the masses, yay. I'm so tired of people trying to pretend that limited tickets to an event billions of people want to attend ought to be available to poor people just because. If they sold for a penny, the resale market would eat them up and they'd still cost what they cost. If you'd bought them for $10, you'd instantly turn around and sell them for a few thousand to someone else. I'm sorry no one prepared you for the fact that rare things have value, but perhaps some introductory economics classes, instead of TikTok-trite-internet-rage would be helpful.

drdexebtjl 4mo ago
Perhaps if you could find economics professsors that agree with each other, I would. Not everything must be race to the bottom. Not everything should be a fucking market. If only rich snobs and people with poor financial control can afford your tickets, that will be the type of fan you’ll retain.
- scott_w 4mo ago
  Ironically it’s the thing that will destroy many sports. People worldwide watch the premier league for the atmosphere. That comes from working class people singing and following their team. There’s a reason Newcastle fans out-sing the home crowd at Old Trafford every year, even when we’re losing.
  - drdexebtjl 4mo ago
    Same thing applies to live music. If I pay high prices for your tickets and for travel to see you play in one of your limited selection of touring cities, sure, I might go. But if you tour again a few years later, I would rather see an artist I haven’t seen live yet. Meanwhile if the tickets are affordable, I’ll try and go again. You’ll have my renewed interest every time.
    - inigyou 4mo ago
      If you pay ten times the price for a ticket and go one fifth as much, they win.

swader999 4mo ago

A stadium full of rich fans makes for a boring event typically.