By John Considine
During this week, radio shows and GAA clubs will be running various competitions for All-Ireland tickets. Both will have competitions with varying degrees of skill/knowledge and chance. The radio show is likely to ask you to txt an answer to a basic multiple choice question to a competition line whereas the GAA club is more likely to conduct some form of a raffle. Both seek to turn their access to All-Ireland tickets into monetary gain – no matter how indirectly.
The textbooks on sports economics argue that the activities of the radio shows and the GAA clubs occur because the allocation of tickets is done on a criteria other than price. The textbooks argue that demand exceeds supply and that the two can be brought into line by increasing the price. Many economists would claim that the tickets for this Sunday’s All-Ireland minor (u-18) and senior hurling finals are being sold too cheaply.
The textbooks will also provide some memorable examples of how enterprising individuals and groups circumvent US
anti-scalping laws. For example, Michael Leeds and Peter von Allmen (authors of The Economics of Sports) describe the situation where University of Michigan students would be seen walking around campus prior to popular football games with a ticket in one hand and a pencil in the other hand. Prospective purchasers could buy the ticket for its face value of $15 if they also bought the pencil. The pencil would then be sold for the difference between the €15 and what the person was willing to pay. If someone was willing to pay $100 then they got the ticket for $15 and the pencil for $85.
The textbooks will also provide some memorable examples of how enterprising individuals and groups circumvent US
anti-scalping laws. For example, Michael Leeds and Peter von Allmen (authors of The Economics of Sports) describe the situation where University of Michigan students would be seen walking around campus prior to popular football games with a ticket in one hand and a pencil in the other hand. Prospective purchasers could buy the ticket for its face value of $15 if they also bought the pencil. The pencil would then be sold for the difference between the €15 and what the person was willing to pay. If someone was willing to pay $100 then they got the ticket for $15 and the pencil for $85.
Sometimes economists will go a step further. They will suggest that the best way of ensuring that those who value the tickets most get the tickets is to raise the price until supply equals demand. They will suggest that this is the economic way of thinking. And it is precisely this way of thinking that the philosopher Michael Sandel questions in his recent book What Money Can’t Buy: the moral limits of markets.
Sandel devotes a large part of his fifth and final chapter to the commercialisation of sport. He begins by describing how, as a twelve year old, he followed his beloved Minnesota Twins to the World Series in 1965. He then goes on to explain how things have changed over the intervening time period. There is the selling of autographs. There is the naming rights to so many aspects of the game, e.g. ballparks, shirts, home runs, a slide to safety at home base, and player’s at bat. There is the use of Skyboxes (Corporate boxes). Sandel also questions the “Moneyball” approach to baseball. He says “Moneyball made baseball more efficient, in the economist’s sense of the term. But did it make it better? Probably not.”
Sandel ends his book with a section called ‘Skyboxification’ and he say that the more things that we allow money to buy the more it erodes the commonality of the experience. He says that Skyboxes represent a “loss not only to those looking up but to those looking down”. Sandel would probably see some merit in the way the GAA allocates its tickets. The search for tickets does tend to build social capital as people draw on their social networks. A ticket is supplied in return for a future ticket. Even the indirect commercialisation by GAA clubs mobilises the voluntary effort of the club members as ticket sellers. This is something we might keep in mind as we bemoan the lack of a few more tickets that we would be more than willing to pay for.
Sandel devotes a large part of his fifth and final chapter to the commercialisation of sport. He begins by describing how, as a twelve year old, he followed his beloved Minnesota Twins to the World Series in 1965. He then goes on to explain how things have changed over the intervening time period. There is the selling of autographs. There is the naming rights to so many aspects of the game, e.g. ballparks, shirts, home runs, a slide to safety at home base, and player’s at bat. There is the use of Skyboxes (Corporate boxes). Sandel also questions the “Moneyball” approach to baseball. He says “Moneyball made baseball more efficient, in the economist’s sense of the term. But did it make it better? Probably not.”
Sandel ends his book with a section called ‘Skyboxification’ and he say that the more things that we allow money to buy the more it erodes the commonality of the experience. He says that Skyboxes represent a “loss not only to those looking up but to those looking down”. Sandel would probably see some merit in the way the GAA allocates its tickets. The search for tickets does tend to build social capital as people draw on their social networks. A ticket is supplied in return for a future ticket. Even the indirect commercialisation by GAA clubs mobilises the voluntary effort of the club members as ticket sellers. This is something we might keep in mind as we bemoan the lack of a few more tickets that we would be more than willing to pay for.
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