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Ticket scalpers navigate difficult market with East Regional tournament tickets widely, cheaply available

As Marshall Street flooded with people ahead of Sunday’s Elite Eight matchup between Louisville and Michigan State, a hand soared above the crowd clutching five tickets to the game.

“Tickets, who needs ‘em?” the man said.

He leaned in and offered the tickets as an Audi SUV drives by. The driver stopped the car and the man gave his price, but the driver shook his head, rolled up his window and continued down Marshall Street.

A puffy, black North Face jacket, worn jeans and a black knit skullcap with a gray stripe at the bottom sheltered Howard Booker from the breeze as he scalped tickets. For the most part, Booker’s inquiries fell on unlistening ears. The tickets he was scalping had plummeted in value.

Tickets in the third level of the Carrier Dome, namely in the corners, had a face value of $75, but StubHub could sell the tickets for around $20.



“What really sets the whole thing off is the teams that played in here,” said Shawn Morrison, Booker’s friend who also scalps tickets. “If we had a Kentucky team or somebody who had fans that traveled, the market would have been up… That’s what’s really killing the market.”

At 1:08 p.m., Booker assumed the corner of Marshall Street and South Crouse Avenue, the same corner another scalper had just vacated.

Armed with a wallet to buy unwanted tickets and an iPhone holstered horizontally on his hip, Booker did not just work alone. At least two others helped along South Crouse Avenue. If one of them had a customer they could match with a ticket, Booker could make a call and he’d turn from scalper to broker.

Less than 10 minutes after Booker showed up at the corner, his friends tried selling tickets with a face value of about $90 for $80. They told the couple looking for tickets they are going for $100.

“You’re not going to make money selling those motherf*ckers so cheap,” he said.

Booker would know. He grew up in Chicago around Soldier Field and Wrigley Field, where the Bears and Cubs play, respectively. As a kid, he sold peanuts at games and estimates he started scalping tickets in the 1970s.

Since then he has scalped tickets at the Super Bowl, the Indianapolis 500 and the World Series. While ticket scalping isn’t his sole source of income — he owns a landscaping business called Hobo Landscaping — he takes road trips to scalp tickets and earn money on the side.

This tournament had been tougher, though. With so many tickets available, and available at such a cheap price, it was difficult to flip tickets, he said.

But Booker has been able to make money even in a buyer’s market.

Booker stood outside Bruegger’s Bagels on South Crouse Avenue with less than 15 minutes until Sunday’s 2:20 p.m. tip-off. A couple approached Booker for tickets and he told them he’d sell them for $50 apiece.

“These are real?” the man said.

“I don’t play games with you,” Booker said. “This is what we do.”

Truth is, Booker paid just $10 for them. The majority of his tickets come from fans that simply have extras and are not willing to spend the time to sell them at face value.

Even with the game having tipped off, Booker had at least five tickets he could flip.

He started again: “Tickets, who needs ‘em?”

This time, it fell against the backdrop of engines humming, brakes screeching and the feet of the few stragglers left hitting the sidewalk. He waited just a few minutes. While he hadn’t sold all his tickets, and he hadn’t lately been going to games he scalped at, he finally headed to the Carrier Dome to watch Michigan State advance to the Final Four.





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