Ticketmaster. Ah, who doesn't hate it? The fees, etc.

But of course, now almost exactly 24 hours after not getting Rose Bowl tickets, after trying on two phone lines and two computers from a little before 8 PST to about 8:30, only to go on stub hub and see 8 PAGES of listings for just-purchased Rose Bowl tickets at two to three times the price,

1) in a system, when there is great financial benefit (or other gain) to be made from using the system for financial benefit than for the reason the system was made (this is derived perhaps from another Blackmur? Babbage? idea, which is the designer of the saw cannot see all the ways the saw will be used, a homely variation on intention and on anticipation and on use case -- in this case, the capitalist reason for a system intended to democratise), that system will be used for financial gain.

Here, this is complicated by the fact that for sporting events, especially at public or quasi-public venues (the rose bowl) presenting college sports (which generates a great deal of money for schools, but is not wisely treated by law, ethics, what have you, as what it is), a certain number of seats are reserved for 1) local residents, 2) season ticket holders for the sports teams involved, 3) direct relatives of the players, and these groups (perhaps there are more groups, too) have separate lotteries. The losers of these lotteries are thrown into competition with the public. The public tickets are mostly offered below "going rate," perhaps because what the going rate was can only be established after the fact, but also because the idea that the majority of unmotivated, not wealthy people who are truly interested in seeing the game cannot afford the true going rate, that the going rate is so high it shocks us because it does not fit into our skewed vision of college sport as quasi-public (I think it is about $300. a ticket), and that there is a significant minority of wealthier, less motivated people who will pay the going rate just to have something to do New Years Day after the Rose Parade.

2) The "war on terror" fix is perhaps the easiest effective one for this. If your ID doesn't match the one on your ticket, you can't enter the stadium. Non-transferable tickets. Turn them into will call, which will refund your money if they can revend the tickets. Ironic, how the "war on terror" move fixes the flaw in a system uneasily between one distributing rare commodities and one exploiting the distribution of same.

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