With the impending rivalry game between the No. 1 Trojans (11-0,
7-0 Pac-10) and the No. 11 Bruins (9-1, 6-1) on Saturday, U-C-L-A
are not the only four letters that matter around Westwood.
Those other four that have captivated students: E-B-A-Y. With a
huge amount of hype surrounding the cross town rivalry game, people
have turned to Ebay, the online marketplace, to sell their tickets
to the game.
The market is buzzing. As of Nov. 27, if you searched for
“USC UCLA tickets,” you would have seen 512 items come
up on the screen to bid on.
The highest asking price for any ticket package to the game was
$4,000, giving you four seats at the 50-yard line and VIP parking.
There were no bids. The priciest item that had been bid on was
another set of 4 tickets at the 50-yard line with parking. With a
starting bid of $2,500, the tickets sat at $3,050 after four
bids.
As remarkable as the online price tags are for seats at this
year’s game, just as remarkable is what they have been.
Earlier in the season, the then undefeated Bruins looked to be
shaping up for a match-up against the Trojans with ramifications
for the national title.
Then the Bruins dropped a hard-to-swallow loss in the Tucson
desert to Arizona to the tune of 52-14. Garrett Peterson, a
second-year chemical engineering student, thought that the loss had
a negative effect on the online bidding wars.
“After being blown out by a team that is mediocre at best,
people are much less optimistic about the “˜SC game,”
Peterson explained. “As a result there isn’t the same
demand for tickets as there was before.”
Yet the stock of the game did not crash as bidding wars
continued, likely rebounding a little after the Bruin’s
victory over Arizona State the following week.
Even students have been getting into the act. The tickets in the
student section are more affordable, existing in the range of about
$150 to $200 for two tickets together, and just under $100 for a
single ticket.
Third-year international development/political science student
Blake Hanley was able to get more than market value for his ticket.
After seven days of open bidding, the single game ticket was sold
Sunday morning for $170.
“I decided to (sell the ticket) when I saw that it
wasn’t near anyone else,” Hanley said. “I tried
to switch it to sit with my friends, but they wouldn’t let me
do that.”
Even though he won’t be watching the game, Hanley plans on
showing up to tailgate at the Coliseum on Saturday. It is clear
that students can successfully sell their tickets online for quite
a bit of money, but some UCLA fans disagree with the idea of making
money off of the game. They believe that this is a rivalry that is
truly priceless.
“You can’t pass up this game, for any price,”
said Marissa Martin, a second-year psychology student.
Many students felt it was ethically wrong to sell the tickets,
but not because it is actually illegal to sell tickets for the
purpose of making a profit ““ a practice called
“scalping.”
Some UCLA football fans don’t understand why anyone would
want to sell off tickets to a game that has national championship
implications.
“I don’t know if I’d say it’s wrong, but
as a student, it’s pretty pathetic. It’s like
you’re taking advantage of the fact that you’re a
student here,” Martin said.
With the average college student being reasonably computer
savvy, it appears that the days of walking around a packed stadium
with scalpers selling tickets are over. The days of the
technological scalper have arrived.
Not everyone dreads this change. In fact, the case has been made
that online ticket selling can even add to the excitement of the
game.
“It definitely adds to the hype,” Peterson said.
“If people are willing to sell the tickets then they
probably wouldn’t enjoy the game. If I’m gonna go to a
game, I want other people to be excited and happy to be there, not
just along for the ride.”
Of course, this is an argument made by students who have
profited off the advent of Internet scalping.