August 14, 2024
You have likely gone to StubHub or TicketMaster or other websites through which you can buy tickets to sporting events, Broadway shows, concerts and the like. These sites exist because people buy tickets at the list price, then re-sell them at a profit. And some people make millions of dollars doing this.
In an effort to put some sort of brakes on this practice, the University of Michigan recently announced that it was prohibiting people from purchasing tickets to its football games solely for the purpose of reselling them. Henceforth, season ticket holders may have no more than eight total tickets for both regular season and post-season play. According to the University, “Season ticket holders attempting to circumvent established ticket limits by creating numerous accounts may have their tickets canceled at the discretion of Michigan Athletics.”
This made Kevin Brick (and his North Carolina-based ticket resale company Maxim Tickets, Inc.) very unhappy. You see, Brick had — until this new policy was implemented — some 164 active ticket accounts for Michigan football. He was operating under the impression that, as a season-ticket holder, his seats would be guaranteed year after year, were freely transferrable for a profit through StubHub and other websites and that payment for tickets and donations to the department would result in more Priority Points for extra perks. Instead, his account has been locked, and the University is apparently going to take the tickets that he purchased and sell them to other parties. I assume that he will at least be reimbursed for the face value of the tickets, but Block is claiming that he will now lose about $3 million in anticipated revenue.
So Block is doing what any red-blooded American would do under similar circumstances. He’s suing for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, intentional interference of business practices and breach of contract.
These ticket brokers remind me of the slave traders of the antebellum South, whom even slaveowners found reprehensible.