New York Jets, StubHub sued for allegedly manipulating PSL auction prices Fri, May 29th 2009 2:24 pm EST By Tim Fraser Three New York Jets fans have filed a lawsuit against the Jets, claiming the team manipulated the prices of the personal seat licenses (PSL) in the "Coaches Club" section in their new stadium during a public online auction. The public auction took place in late October of last year and was conducted on StubHub, which is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. When the Jets announced their PSL policy last August, they announced the 2,000 "Coaches Club" PSLs would be sold exclusively as part of an auction in order to allow the market determine the price. Once the auction had closed, the team had only sold slightly over 600 of the seats, withholding the 1,400 remaining seats from the auction and planned to sell them at a fixed price. According to the lawsuit, when the team reduced the number of available PSLs for purchase, they were allegedly attempting to influence the market value of those seats. It goes on to claim that Jets chairman and CEO Woody Johnson said following the auction that the public determined the prices, that the auction was "democratic" and that there was a public demand for the seat licenses. The lawsuit disputes all of those claims. "These statements were false and deceptive as the defendants failed to permit the public from setting the prices, the auction process was manipulated, not democratic and in that the defendants deceptively acted to manipulate and intervene into the auction process in order to prevent 'Coaches Club' seats from falling to their true market value," the lawsuit claims. "During the auction, I thought it was unfair," attorney Robert J. Walker, who is also one of the defendants, told TicketNews. He added that following the auction he attempted to contact the parties via letters but was unable to resolve the issue and decided to file the lawsuit. StubHub spokesperson Sean Pate told TicketNews that company believes that the case is without merit. In addition to limiting the number of PSLs available to the public, the lawsuit also claims that the auction also was manipulated by extending the bidding times to increase the potential selling price. Kyle Burks, founder of SeasonTicketRights.com, followed the auction and at that time noticed the extended bidding periods. Burks told TicketNews in October that auctions he found that were supposed to close the evening of October 19 at 8:30 p.m. were extended to the following morning. If the auction for seats in Section 113, Row 22, Seats 25-29 had closed when it was originally listed, the PSLs would have sold for $9,500 per seat. The auction did not close until almost 8 a.m. the next morning, and sold for more than $20,000 per seat. Walker is serving as the attorney for the other two plaintiffs, William Poisson of New York, and John McHale of New Jersey, and is seeking damages against the Jets and StubHub for false advertising, deception of the public and conspiracy, among other charges. Didn't see it posted...Gratuitous Linky
good i hope they take it right in the ass on this one. i have a skewed perception of the whole thing but it does really seem that they did control the market. just like the douchebags that they are. my dislike for woody johnson is growing on a daily basis.
I don't trust any of those sites. When I tried to get my Phish tickets and they were sold out, ticketmaster automatically redirected me to TicketsNow, second only to Stubhub in ticket resales. Seems like a conflict of interest to me. It sucks, but as a supporter of a free market, I have come to accept it. Just not when its owned by the same company. Good article: http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdai...secondary-ticket-market-by-buying-ticketsnow/
Maybe they only sold 600 out of 2,000 at the auction, was because they only had 600 bids. That's about the only legal way I could see for them to live up to what they promised. How can the Jet's complain about players not living up to the terms of a contract and wanting to renegotiate when they renogiated their sale from 600 to 2,000 tickets.
thank you! everyone is always so quick to talk badly about players who want to renegotiate. this is far from asking for something. they basically decided they didnt like the way things were going and changed the rules. this is what the ENTIRE nfl has become. no dignity left.
Well I don't know much about the specifics, but it seems like the Jets only auctioned off 600 club seats to increase the value of those seats. It's only natural that they would receive more money with less seats for auction. I think that if they auctioned off all 2,000, like they said, they would have went for a lower average price. I'm pretty sure that there was more than 600 bids, with people out-bidding each other.
ive used stubhub on numerous occasions to get extra tickets for family or friends who wanted to join us and always had a satisfying experience. one time we purchased 4 extra tickets for a decent price and without being mentioned in the sale ad we got an extra parking pass included in the deal.
the defendants deceptively acted to manipulate and intervene into the auction process "the defendants deceptively acted to manipulate and intervene into the auction process in order to prevent 'Coaches Club' seats from falling to their true market value, the lawsuit claims." I think this is key. I always wondered how the Jets could get away with opening up this auction by offering 2,000 seats at market value and then, upon determining that the prices were not to their liking after selling 600 seats, immediately shut it down. There was no "reserve," mind you. Reserve would have protected them from falling prices. "We'll sell the Club Seats as long as they generate $12,000 per seat." But no such bottom was stipulated. Instead, they offered 2,000 seats open to the general public at general auction and then bail when the true market value (or price) doesn't suit them. Sounds like price-fixing to me. And that's illegal.
I agree that it is bullshit, but is it really illegal? I mean the Jets organization are entitled to sell as many tickets as they want, at any price they want. Just because they said they were going to auction off 2000 tickets, doesn't mean you are bound by law to sell all 2,000 seats. It's not so much price fixing as it is falsely creating a larger demand. The only way I can see this being a problem is that if they agreed to sell tickets to certain people at certain prices, but this was an auction so I don't believe this was the case. I don't see how this is much different than under-shipping a product, like the Wii, in order to create a demand, and thus raising prices.
My fear is that it may not be illegal, but I sure as hell wish some of what they did is. If a company puts 2,000 widgets out for sale without stating a bottom-line price and then withdraws the remaining 1400 when they don't reach a certain price, is this not price fixing? I'm not sure. And I'm not a commerce attorney.
It seems like everyone in this thread is angry with Woody and the Jets and wants to see them lose this case. I understand the anger - I also think it's unfair for them to engage in price-fixing on these Coaches Club seats. However, from a practical standpoint, wouldn't it be in our best interests for the Jets NOT to lose this case? I mean, I don't know what kind of punitive damages could be awarded in a case like this but it always seemed to me like money out of Woody's pocket is money that could have been spent luring a big-team FA (especially in the upcoming uncapped year). Or worse, who knows if the NFL could impose sanctions for the Jets participating in such an activity! Could you imagine losing draft picks?
It will be interesting to see how this case is settled, assuming that some sort of plea bargain doesn't take place. It seems to me the Jets are sitting on a house of cards. They bet the ranch they could sell PSL's at a price point only comparable to the Dallas Cowboys (average of $15,000/PSL) and they had no Plan B. If the Giants coming off an improbable Super Bowl victory and a waiting list of 140,000 fans can exhaust that list trying to sell overpriced seats, what happens to the Jets? This whole thing is ready to implode.
Yeah it's absolute BS and it's just dirty business. What I posted above is just my thoughts on the legality of the issue, and I am in no way, shape, or form qualified to determine whether it was legal/illegial
I think it's in the best interest of the ticket-holders to get this story out there a little more. I haven't heard about it anywhere else.
'price fixing' in the illegal sence occurs when two or more companies conspire to artificially raise prices. cuts to the core of free enteprise. that's why monolopy laws are so strict (ask anyone who worked for ibm in the 70's). the jets engage in legal 'price fixing' every time the sell a ticket. or jersey. or cup of beer. if you are not a monopoly, you can set the price of your product to anything you want. there are restriction against some things like 'bait and switch', or the fine print taketh what the large print seems to giveth. the jets probably broke 'ebay' rules, but don't look for them to lose the law suit.
Jet Auction Lawsuit I remember them doing some weird stuff with that auction. I had enrolled myself to bid, hoping I could steal a few of those great seats if the PSL was low enough. When the bidding started, the minimum bid was $5000.00 Per Seat. And I monitored the auction hoping to low ball some seats and bid like $8000.00 or $10K. What happened was that some people bid some crazy $$$, but a lot of the bids were going for between 10 K and 20 K. But I guess the JETS Management was not happy with the numbers, and within 2 days, they raised the MINIMUM to $10,000.00 Per Seat, instead of 5K to generate some bigger revenue. I do know a few people scored some of those Coaches Club PSL's for like $10,500.00, which is a great deal on the PSL, but at $700.00 per game, that is a lot of cabbage no matter how you slice it. But yes, I would say that they were manipulating pricing and I hope they lose big time!!!!!
