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NFL Ticket Demand: The Movement of Prices in the Secondary Market

Thesis advisor: Christopher Maxwell / Historically underpriced, tickets for shows and sports games are frequently purchased just for the intent of resale at a higher value. This action has helped facilitate the creation of a large online secondary market for event tickets. Trying to capture the excess demand left by primary sellers, online ticket brokers often drastically inflate prices from face value. Using data from Ace Ticket from the second half of the 2011 NFL season, this thesis examines what factors drive ticket price movement. By splitting the effects into a team strength component and a days until the contest component, this study finds two major factors correlated with changes in ticket prices. The results show that, while playoff chances are the best proxy for team strength, the days until the game element (in particular the last week before a contest) has the most significant effect on prices. Often dropping prices by over 50 percent, ticket brokers scramble to make a sale during the last week. Although individual NFL teams can aggressively price their tickets to capture more revenue immediately from the primary market, this analysis shows that they may not be able to compete with ticket brokers who can adjust prices daily without the fear of alienating fans / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_102323
Date January 2012
CreatorsTremblay, Ross D.
PublisherBoston College
Source SetsBoston College
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, thesis
Formatelectronic, application/pdf
RightsCopyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.

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