NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) — The National Football League has reached a settlement in a multi-state antitrust probe that will see the league dropping their price floor policy for game tickets sold through the league's sanctioned secondary market service.
Under the policy, which the NFL dropped after the investigation by New York Attorney General Schneiderman began, sellers were not permitted to list tickets for resale on the NFL’s officially sanctioned resale sites at a price lower than the face-value of the ticket.
However, the settlement is not as robust as it could be. While the settlement bars the NFL from setting league-wide floors, it still allows individual teams to impose their own price floor. However, the settlement does require that any team imposing such a price floor to disclose it to the public.
“No sports fan should be forced to buy, or sell, a ticket at an artificially inflated price,” AG Schneiderman. “Under the NFL’s price floor scheme, fans were forced to pay inflated prices for even the least desirable NFL games. That is a slap to both sports fans and free markets."
"My office will continue to fight for the rights of sports fans and concertgoers by ensuring that secondary markets are free and competitive. In the meantime, I encourage every NFL team—and every team in professional sports—to heed the call of all sports fans and remove price floors from every team-authorized secondary ticket market.”
The NFL deal involved prosecutors from New York, Florida, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told the New York Post that the league was satisfied with the agreement.
“The settlement agreement confirms that the state AGs have concluded their two-year investigation and did not identify any injury to consumers resulting from the leaguewide Ticket Exchange price floor, alone or in combination with other ticketing practices,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said. – Staff Writers
