February 5, 2006

I was feeling sorry for the Seattle Seahawks,

who looked like the better team in their unlucky Super Bowl loss, until at the end of the game the TV showed their grieving owner Paul Allen. Mr. Allen is Bill Gates' old roommate and thus has more money than God. He bought Ticketmaster, which bought its only competitor Ticketron, and then started raising prices So now when my wife looked into buying a $20 concert ticket last month, the Ticketmaster service charge on top of that was $9.50, or a 47.5% surcharge. But I guess Allen had to raise prices so much, what with the ever rising cost of computing and communications.

When Pearl Jam objected in 1994 that their fans shouldn't have to pay Ticketmaster's absurd markups, Ticketmaster wouldn't cut their charges, daring the biggest band in America at the time to see if anyone would do business with them. Pearl Jam tried it, and tour turned out to be a fiasco, because all the good hockey rinks were terrified of the wrath of Ticketmaster. You'd think that some politician hoping to appeal to the youth vote would take on Ticketmaster's monopoly, but it hasn't happened.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

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