Sports Fans Coalition is warning that the drive for price-cap legislation by industry insiders – largely Live Nation/Ticketmaster and AEG, and Oak View Group – would drive a sharp increase in consumer fraud risk wherever implemented. The end goal of eliminating the independent ticket resale markets will do little to lower actual prices paid for tickets by consumers, contrary to what the industry insiders and their surrogate advocacy groups are saying.
Live Nation’s “Fair” ticketing template – echoed by the “Fix The Tix” coalition controlled by former Ticketmaster chief and current Oak View Group leader Irving Azoff – calls for a legislative system in which consumer ticket resale is effectively eliminated by granting broad regulatory control of ticketing to primary ticketing companies themselves, including the implementation of price controls.
This effort has seen proposed federal legislation – the “Fans First” act introduced at the federal level in late 2023 failed to gain traction. More recently, efforts by the industry lobby got California’s AB 1349 introduced, but that currently sits on the shelf awaiting a committee hearing. Most recently, New York saw the introduction of S 8221, which brings a near-complete reversal from bill sponsor and former sharp Ticketmaster critic Sen. James Skoufis, mirroring the “Fair” ticketing template.
Overseas cautionary tale
In its warning against the implementation of such market controls at the behest of a company already being sued by the DOJ as an illegal monopoly, Sports Fans Coalition cites a March study by London-based Bradshaw Advisory comparing markets with and without resale caps. Fraud complaints were almost four times higher in cap jurisdictions such as Victoria, Australia, and Ireland. The firm pegs the United Kingdom’s current fraud cost at £1.37 billion ($1.84 billion) a year; a UK cap modeled on those countries would raise losses to £4.9 billion ($6.6 billion) and slash VAT receipts. (Bradshaw Advisory) Digital tickets—ubiquitous in the U.S.—accounted for roughly 70 percent of incidents.
U.S. evidence cuts against caps
- A Cato Institute analysis of NHL resale data found no price spikes in states that repealed caps—only a drop in listing volume, reducing fan choice.
- The American Consumer Institute reports 55 percent of U.S. resale tickets sell below face value, saving buyers an estimated $475 million since 2017.
- Massachusetts scrapped its decades-old cap last December; no state has enacted a new one in 2025 despite nearly two dozen attempts.
Coalition’s bottom line
“Price ceilings sound fan-friendly, but they hurt the very people they claim to protect,” Sports Fans Coalition says. By forcing legitimate sellers off regulated exchanges and into social-media meetups or parking-lot hand-offs, lawmakers would empower scammers while eroding tax revenue and consumer guarantees.
