Tickets for sporting events

Can someone explain to me how this works?

If a ticket for the superbowl (or other sporting event) has a face value, how is it that companies can charge much more than that yet a scalper in front of a stadium gets arrested for selling tickets over face value?

bczoom said:

Can someone explain to me how this works?

If a ticket for the superbowl (or other sporting event) has a face value, how is it that companies can charge much more than that yet a scalper in front of a stadium gets arrested for selling tickets over face value?

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I think if you read the fine print, the price of the ticket is only face value. The rest is "handling" or "convenience" fees.

Plus, they are a registered business, paying taxes on their income.

I believe that the right to sell privately owned tickets has actually been upheld in court under the scope that tickets are private property, and therefore unrestricted in their sale. I would assume that the primary problem with scalpers is a good number of the tickets are counterfeit.

I remember seeing tickets for big sporting events on eBay where the seller would say: "Chiefs bumper sticker $999. Comes with pair of game tickets for Sunday's game for free!"
I guess that means they aren't selling the tickets over face value?

Lawrence