Sonics-Bulls Tickets Bringing Big Bucks To ‘Entrepreneurs’
The guy on the phone had Sonics tickets and, for $1,000 each, he’d happily part with them.
But the clock was ticking. He had 10 other numbers on his pager to call and are you interested? Are you, are you? They’re great seats, and they’re going fast.
Indeed, Rick, a season-ticker holder, who would give only his first name, had already sold five seats in a luxury box at Seattle’s KeyArena for the tidy sum of $5,000.
He was willing to sell up to four more to the Sonics-Chicago Bulls championship playoffs - the first time the Sonics have been in the playoff finals since 1979.
Tickets are so hot, and hard to come by, that phone lines jammed again Thursday night when TicketMaster Northwest sold 400 tickets - 200 for each game - in 14 minutes.
With so few tickets and so many fans, entrepreneurialism (also known as scalping) is soaring. Rick and many other season-ticket holders are cashing in on their coveted seats at wildly inflated prices, ranging from $300 to $1,200, even though Seattle ordinances prohibit reselling tickets for more than their posted price and even forbid the sale of tickets, at any price, 2 hours before a game near sports venues.
Violators can face a $300 fine and 90 days in jail.
But in other Puget Sound communities, including Bellevue, Tacoma, Everett and Issaquah, it’s legal to resell tickets, and many people are doing just that.
Brokers, who get most of their tickets from season-ticket holders, are third-party buyers and sellers who must have a business license to operate. Many are renting apartments and hotel rooms in Bellevue and advertising their services in newspapers and on the Internet. Sellers or seekers can call in, negotiate a price, and exchange tickets in person or through the mail.
One of the biggest local companies is Pacific NW Ticket Service of Mercer Island. While the company has saturated classified ads with offers to buy and sell tickets, its officials would not talk about their operation. But business tax records indicate the company grosses $20,000 a quarter.
Brokers are often reluctant to disclose where and how they get their tickets because they “are depicted as ‘those evil ticket scalpers,”’ said Jonathon Kirkland, a broker with Encore Tickets, which has offices in Dallas and Atlanta and is renting a hotel room in Bellevue for the playoffs. “But the people who are making out like bandits are the season-ticket holders.”
Alan Gothelf, owner of Who Needs Two, a Chicago-area brokerage company that advertises on the Internet, agreed. He is selling Bulls-Sonics tickets for Chicago games but won’t say what they’re selling for.
“It makes me look bad,” said Gothelf. “People assume I pay face value for tickets, and I don’t.”
None of that elicits sympathy from TicketMaster.
“If people are desperate and act emotionally, they have the option of going to a company that predicates their price on the demand since the supply is so low,” said Brian Kabatznick, general manager of TicketMaster Northwest. “They literally can set their price.”
Jason Kinloch found that out the hard way. Kinloch, who works at a fruit warehouse in Yakima and considers himself a diehard basketball fan, searched for tickets by posting a classified ad on the Internet.
“I knew it would be expensive,” he said, “but didn’t think tickets would be over $1,000, not even courtside.”
He finally bought four tickets from someone who answered his Internet ad - he won’t say what he paid - and was trying to buy more Thursday night through TicketMaster.
But even using family members and the company’s 10 phone lines, he struck out. Now he’s back to the Internet.
Failing to snare TicketMaster tickets, many people will try to score tickets outside KeyArena on game nights. It’s illegal but common - primarily because most scalpers don’t get caught.
According to the Seattle City Attorney’s office, the city has prosecuted 128 cases since 1993. More than half, 85, were in 1995, when the Mariners were in the playoffs.
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