Who Needs Two?

In a story so old that this site actually discussed it three years ago, an appellate court judge affirmed the ruling that the Cubs and Premium Tickets acted legally in reselling tickets.

As this page correctly noted, there is nothing illegal about a company setting up a separate business but with common ownership and reselling tickets. What is yet to be answered is the question originally asked back in 2003: How can Premium be a legal scalper of tickets if they don't have to go through the same process of obtaining tickets that other scalpers do?

If Ivy Chat Tickets has to wait in line to buy tickets and purchase tickets from season ticket holders on the open market, yet Premium can buy direct from the Chicago Cubs, that would seem to indicate that Premium is not a true re-seller of tickets and, instead, a marketing arm of the Cubs. It also seems that such an arrangement, if only available to Premium and no other broker, could be an illegal restraint of trade.

If people really want to defeat Premium, then this seems to be the proper angle of attack.

All that said, I don't really care that Premium scalps tickets. Scalpers are simply poachers earning profit on the arbitrage of ticket prices. Why should they get the profit because demand is greater than supply? Why can't the Cubs keep that profit for themselves? It is their product.

I'd have no problem with the Cubs setting up a "Cub Hub" dot com and selling all tickets via open market themselves. They take the risk on placing a team on the field. They should earn all the profit that they can make.