I’m sure you, like many University students, tried to sell your Alabama ticket this weekend with little luck.
Welcome to the wacky world of economic bubbles.
Bubbles are a tough thing in economic theory. First, a little background is in order.
Prices for things should reflect that thing’s actual value. So, if a house is only worth $100,000, people should be buying and selling it for around $100,000.
Sometimes, though, people get a little crazy and overestimate how much something is worth. In a group-driven frenzy, they start driving prices up — way up.
Afterward, for any number of reasons, everybody decides the product we thought was super cool is immediately worth next to nothing. Think Britney Spears.
Alabama student tickets have historically done the same thing.
I’d like to clarify this: Like all black markets, accurate information about this is hard to get ahold of (obviously), so everything I write here is based on my own experiences, as well as those of the many people I’ve spoken with.
In the last couple years, LSU-Alabama student ticket prices have been driven up to around $150-$200 dollars. This year, I watched prices go from that same historical price only a month ago to a staggering low just before the game. Greedy students looking to make a quick buck did for ticket sales what dogs did to Michael Vick’s career.
For example, I spoke with one girl who, after posting a listing on Craigslist for $1, told me she literally was about to just give the ticket away to a friend because she couldn’t sell it.
Why did this situation happen?
It’s really tough to tell how much illegal goods are worth because it’s tough to compare prices. Imagine if you had no idea whatsoever what a TV was worth. You ask two friends what they paid for theirs. One says $100, one says $1,000. Dang.
Alabama tickets were like that. Someone might sell a ticket for $15 to a friend, and 10 minutes later they sell that same ticket for $200 to someone else. Without a way to compare prices, the market is absolutely crippled to find a fair, steady price.
So, if demand for the game goes down, people will pay less for the tickets. People who have the tickets still think they can get an easy $200 for the ticket and, valuing the cash more than the game, decide to sell the ticket.
Whenever everybody decides to sell off their tickets, the market gets flooded with ticket offers, driving prices down even further.
To make things worse, anyone who was holding on to their ticket saw all the tickets being sold at low prices and, in a panic, sold their ticket too, fearing they would get stuck with a ticket they either couldn’t use or didn’t want to.
Remember, selling tickets above what you paid for them is illegal in Louisiana. We pay $12 per ticket, so if you can’t make it, you’re allowed under Louisiana law to sell the ticket for up to $12 or to give it away.
This isn’t just something that’s frowned upon anymore. The LSU Ticket Office is really cracking down on illegal ticket sales, even going so far as to browse our Facebook posts for people trying to sell their tickets.
At its worst, you could get a fine ranging from $100 to a whopping $500, in addition to 30 to 90 days in jail, on top of any academic consequences, on the authority of Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 4 on Amusements and Sports.
The Bottom Line: LSU tickets are like any other good, complete with bubbles and collapses, even to the point of forming small black markets, where it is easy and profitable to do so.
Devin Graham is a 21-year-old business management senior from Prairieville. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_dgraham.
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Contact Devin Graham at [email protected]