Its the cubs what can you say
Federal regulations violation?
Ah, they'll just get a change of venue to Chicago, and the judge will rule it's legal to violate federal regulations, just like they ruled it's legal for the Cubs to scalp their own tickets.
It's legal to scalp tickets most places, including Houston.
The court found "no deception" in the fact that Premium charged more than the advertised price of the tickets.
Proving that there's as much justice in the justice system as jazz in Utah, an appeals court ruled recently that the Chicago Cubs' ticket-scalping scheme did not violate state anti-scalping laws, despite clearly violating the state's anti-trust law.The Illinois Ticket Scalping Act says that if you put on a sporting event (or a Cubs game), you can't sell those tickets for more than their face value. The Cubs set up a sham firm, Wrigley Field Premium Tickets, which was owned by the same people who owned the Cubs, run by a Cubs VP, and even had the Cubs do their accounting. The Cubs would then funnel them face-value tickets before they were available to anyone else, which the sham company would scalp. I've followed this story since 2002, when two Cubs fans took the whole rotten system to court, and I have no idea how this can be ruled legal.
I think the issue is that it's legal to scalp tickets, but not when you're the issuer of the tickets. It may be caught up in the interstate commerce exemption 'n' shit. There was a long thread about it in here when the story first came up.
Well, the original distributor of the tickets can sell them for whatever they want. You can't scalp tickets to your own event. I agree that it was deceitful, but I'm not surprised that it is not illegal.
They found (created) a loophole to avoid a law that was clearly written to try to stop them doing what they were doing. The law is flawed and, if IL is serious about the issue, needs to be changed. The Cubs are still scumbags, preying on their fans and gouging them for a shitty product. CubFans are, well, Cubfans for putting up with it.
It wasn't a loophole. Scalping is not illegal in Illinois. You are allowed to resell tickets above face value.
I guess it depends on what the definition of "resell" is. It would take a lawyer to explain, and my simple mind can barely add fractions!
From the Limey quoted article: "The Illinois Ticket Scalping Act says that if you put on a sporting event (or a Cubs game), you can't sell those tickets for more than their face value."Assuming that's true, it's not "reselling" tickets which is why it would be against the law.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=094-0020Here is the actual law. Look at this part of it and tell me how you interpret that."(b) This Act does not apply to the resale sale of tickets of admission to a sporting event, theater, musical performance, or place of public entertainment or amusement of any kind for a price in excess of the printed box office ticket price by a ticket broker who meets all of the following requirements: blah, blah, blah"
Again, "resale" is the issue.
and if the first sale is a sham?
Well, to start with, the blah, blah, blah part would be the most relevant part.
But additionally, the question of whether it was "resale" when bought back by the original seller is open to interpretation.
Right. Reselling is not necessarily illegal in Illinois.
The point being that they weren't reselling. They were selling.
No, the Cubs were selling, the Ticket Co. was re-selling. Yes, they were owned by the same parent corporation, but isn't the purpose of wholly-owned subsidiaries to establish separate legal entities, in part at least, to isolate the two for legal reasons (regulation, taxes, liability, whathaveyou)?
I have no idea whether baseball, or even the scammed road teams, give two shits about this.
We're quite certain MLB gives no shits about the Astros getting screwed.
The Cubs are using a proxy to sell tickets at market value so that they can avoid pricing them at market value...and sharing those proceeds with the visiting team.
There is no "gate split" in MLB. All revenue is reported and divided up as either "Central Revenue" or "Local Revenue" and figured into the Revenue Sharing Plan accordingly. But the Cubs aren't holding out on their visitors by doing this.
There hasn't been a gate split since 1997.
Revenue from Premium's ticket sales aren't factoring into the calculation of central or local revenue. But the profits go straight into the club owner's sky-rocket.
Right. Neither is the premium on Stubhub on Astros or any other club's ticket. But then the Cubs aren't benefiting, the Tribune is. And I'm not arguing it's not a sweet deal for the Tribune.
Doesn't Stubhub have a deal with MLB?
Yes, they were owned by the same parent corporation, but isn't the purpose of wholly-owned subsidiaries to establish separate legal entities, in part at least, to isolate the two for legal reasons (regulation, taxes, liability, whathaveyou)?
