The world of Super Bowl tickets sales is a shady and now cold-hearted business.
ESPN.com is reporting that hundreds of fans planning to attend Sundays extravaganza,, reportedly had their hearts broken after ticket brokers reneged on the deals.
The brokers selling or guaranteeing the tickets actually don’t even have them before they start to assure clients that their tickets for said game are safe.
Brokers sell tickets and buy them cheaper closer to the event to make their profits. But the idea of selling before having anything in hand became more commonplace as the returns consistently came in for previous Super Bowls.
That was until this year, when too many brokers sold tickets they didn’t have and for lower prices than in previous years, making it impossible to get the real ticket for a price that was affordable when it came time to pull the trigger. By last Sunday, brokers were buying the worst seats for $5,000 just to save their company. Five days later, finding a ticket even for $10,000 was a challenge.
According to the report from Darren Rovell, some of the stories are just heartbreaking to hear.
Daryl Kikucki, a 37-year-old regional service manager for a jet company in Seattle, is a Seahawks season-ticket holder who sold his ticket to the NFC Championship Game so that he could afford to go the Super Bowl.
He bought a $2,100 ticket listed on SeatGeek, which pulled the seat from a company called Prominent Tickets.
“Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have not received our normal allotment of Super Bowl inventory,” read an email sent from the company to Kikuchi. “In our 26 years of business, we have never seen a market with such limited availability to the public … If the tickets were out there, we would rather pay to fill your orders, but we cannot buy tickets that do not exist.”
The company’s terms and conditions, which a customer must check, absolves it from liability but does not represent that tickets that are listed might not be in its possession.
“Now when I think about this game, I get sick to my stomach, knowing I’m not going to be in the stadium,” said Kikuchi, who added he had no choice but to take the company’s offer of two times what he paid.
Luke Kassi of Phoenix said he paid $1,750 to Ludus Tours the week before the NFC Championship Game for the right to buy two tickets at face value ($950 each) if the Seahawks won.
Kassi was assured he was getting his tickets until Thursday, when he received an email from company owner and founder Brian Peters.
“I have bad news to report from Scottsdale,” the email read. “I do not believe that my suppliers are delivering tickets to me … I am sincerely sorry for this situation. For what it is worth, I will not have a functioning business once the dust settles from this event. I assure you that I am not profiting from this circumstance, and that I will do everything in my power to resolve it for you.”
This is just brutal and something has to be done. Most of the ticket buyers have been informed that it’s a civil matter, but who truly wants to sue after suffering such heartbreak.
