scalping

Scalping Tickets Then and Now

pat-hickey
Pat Hickey

I suppose selling tea wasn’t quite doing it for Minoru Ikeda. This enterprising tea dealer from Utsunomiya, Tochigi was indicted during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics for scalping tickets, according to The Japan Times of October 20, 1964.

Ikeda bought the tickets fair and square, 60 through his local Japan Travel Bureau office and through direct mail orders to the Tokyo Olympic Committee. Apparently he pulled in a cool JPY150,000 in profit, re-selling four third -lass track and field tickets for the outrageous price of JPY10,000 each. I actually have a third-class ticket from those Games, and it states the price is JPY1,000. According to the article, Ikeda sold 52 more tickets for another JPY200,000.

But that pales in comparison to the reports that came out of the 2016 Rio Olympics when a senior member of the International Olympic Committee, Pat Hickey, was arrested on August 17, 2016, for ticket touting, or scalping.

Hickey was imprisoned for 11 days in Bangu Prison, and was released, primarily due to the fact that he was a 71-year-old in poor health, and his passport had been taken away. After about 4 months in Brazil, Hickey was allowed to return to Ireland, no longer the head of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI), a position he had resigned soon after his arrest.

scalping
The Japan Times, October 20, 1964.

Hickey had been the head of the OCI since 1989 and had apparently ruled Irish Olympics with a firm hand. And as an executive board member of the IOC, Hickey received such benefits as a USD900 per diem during Olympic Games. But that apparently wasn’t enough. Since Hickey apparently he collaborated with the organizations that was responsible for the selling of Olympic tickets in Ireland, he and Kevin Mallon (another person arrested in Rio), had access to the most valuable tickets at the Rio Games, the opening and closing ceremonies.

According to The Guardian, police seized over a thousand such tickets, which would could be sold at exorbitant prices. The article claims that Mallon’s company, THG, was looking to pull in a profit of USD10 million. That is definitely an improvement on JPY200,000, even accounting for inflation!

Hickey, who asserts his innocence in the charges, is awaiting the start of court deliberations on his case in Rio. If found guilty he could face prison time.

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Ticket Sales for Rio Olympics Underwhelming: The Empty-Seats Phenomenon to Continue

2004 Athens Olympics

Reports are that only 50% of tickets to the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, starting on August 5, have been sold. For the Paralympics in September, only 12% have been sold.

The Brazilian economy is shrinking during its worst recession in 25 years. The President of Brazil is under threat of impeachment for a decision to include an ex-President in her cabinet, someone under investigation for receiving bribes in the Petrobras corruption scandal. The Zika virus continues to spread in Brazil, a disease where there is now “strong scientific consensus” that it is a cause of microcephaly in newborns.

Those perhaps are the biggest factors that will result in many empty seats of a possible 7.5 million that are available for the Rio Olympics.

What’s interesting is that empty seats at Olympic Games is a recurring headache and embarrassment for Olympic organizing committees.

At the 2004 Games in Athens, “only about two-thirds of the 5.3 million tickets were sold“. At the 2008 Games in Beijing, organizers claimed that all 6.8 million tickets were sold, and yet empty seats blotted arenas throughout the Games. And at the 2012 Games in London, where pledge after pledge was made by organizers to fill the seats, and that “more than 20 million applications were made for the 6.6 million available seats”, the London organizing committee could not prevent the empty-seat phenomenon.

Empty Seats at Gymnastics Competition at London Games
2012 London Games

Athens and Rio share a common issue in that their economies may not be vibrant enough to drive local ticket sales. But Beijing and London do. Other factors are at play, resulting in tickets going unused. This article from The Guardian regarding empty seats at the London Games indicates that a few groups who are granted reserved seating, often the best seats in the house, just don’t show up:

  • Accredited members of the Olympic family, which include international sports federations, IOC officials and corporate sponsors,
  • Guests of corporate sponsors who receive tickets more for their affiliation with the sponsor and less regarding their interest in the Games
  • Members of the press, who may be less interested in heats and preliminary rounds
  • Athletes, particularly in the first week of the Games as all athletes are preparing or competing

Beijing pointed to another group – agencies that buy and re-sell tickets to people overseas or to people locally anticipating a spike in demand during the Games. Westerners in

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