Marlins Sell Tickets to a Game That's Already Over 

On June 1, the Florida Marlins began selling tickets to a game that had already happened.  Huh?

 

Three days earlier, Roy Halladay threw the 20th perfect game in baseball history, so the Marlins began selling previously unsold tickets as souvenirs.  Ahh, ok.  Makes sense, except that, usually, commemorative tickets are sold by the team that accomplished the feat.  But whatever.  The Marlins are a low revenue team, and if ideas like this help them retain some of their young talented players, we're all for it.  The Marlins sold more than 3,000 tickets in the first few hours - not bad.

 

We'll leave most of the commentary to others, such as this Miami Herald writer's take that the Marlins have finally figured out how to make money from people not attending their games.  And this piece is clever, but the author raises a question about the devaluation of tickets that people actually bought and used in advance that got us thinking.

 

Logically, the addition of additional items into a marketplace devalues existing items.  But by how much?  Would new, unused tickets be worth more or less than comparable tickets that fans actually used?  We decided to find out by analyzing actual sales from one of the internet's great marketplaces, Ebay, using the search "halladay perfect game ticket".  We reviewed 20 sales, which is not a big sample size, but for the sake of this column, it's enough to give us a general idea.

 

Three types of game tickets were issued: 1) full color card stock tickets with a photo of a Marlins player, generally only issued to season ticket holders (STHs); 2) generic TicketMaster versions, which are the only kind for sale now; and 3) electronically-deliverable tickets printed on standard copy paper.

 

There was no statistically significant cost differential between used vs. unused tickets of any of the three types.  However, if you are a collector, the full color card stock tickets are clearly the most desirable; most were selling for more than the original ticket price.  TicketMaster versions are mostly selling below their original cost, regardless of whether that ticket was at the stadium during the game.  So if you bought some as an investment after the game... it was probably a bad investment.

 

 

In the aftermath of the Armando Galarraga near-perfect game, we ask: If human officials were removed entirely from competition - and not just sports, but any competition, including, for example, American Idol - and 100% of all officiating decisions were made by technology (including, but not limited to, replay), would you be more or less likely to buy a ticket?

Argument for more: Games would take less time and the game's outcome would be more accurate.

Argument for less: The removal of a human officiating element is the first step toward completely desensitizing us to live competition.

Responses welcome on our Facebook page.