An AP News Analysis

By DAVID A. LIEB

Associated Press Writer

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — If you’re an avid sports fan, chances are fair that you’ve abetted a crime to get to a game.

Not by speeding down the highway to reach the stadium (though you may have done that, too) but by buying a ticket from a scalper.

Missouri is one of a dwindling number of states where it remains illegal to re-sell tickets to sporting events for more than face value. Scalpers can be fined $50-$1,000 and jailed from 15 days to one year, depending on how many times they have been caught.

Yet ticket scalping continues on sidewalks and Internet sites, largely because the 1989 law is difficult to enforce.

Now Missouri lawmakers appear poised to scalp the law.

The House last week voted to repeal the anti-scalping law as part of a broader economic development package backed by Gov. Matt Blunt. The Senate is expected to do the same this week, when the focus of a special legislative session shifts to its chamber.

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So should sports fans be celebrating?

Or should they be shaking in their seats for fear scalpers will freely jack up their ticket prices?

Advocates of repealing the law contend there’s no need to worry. In fact, they claim fans likely will pay less when scalpers can legally charge more.

Huh?

Their reasoning rests on basic supply-and-demand economics. If ticket scalping becomes legal, then more people should be willing to do it. Thus the supply of tickets on the re-sale market should increase, and if demand for those tickets remains the same, then the prices should fall.

“There will be a flood of tickets for sale,” St. Louis Cardinals lobbyist John Bardgett Jr. predicted last week to a legislative committee. “When that happens, competition works — prices get driven down.”

That theme was echoed by representatives of the St. Louis Rams, Kansas City Chiefs, the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Ticketmaster, eBay and the Overland Park, Kan.-based ticket brokering firm Ticket Solutions.

The Cardinals, for one, insist legal ticket scalping would provide a greater benefit to their fans than their front office.

But Ticketmaster, among others, acknowledges the potential to make more money. The company already acts as an original ticket seller for the Chiefs and Rams, and also hosts an Internet site allowing for the re-sale of tickets.

Full Story: http://www.hdnews.net/Print/k1011_BC_MO_Focus_TicketScalp_08_26_0879

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