NCAA ticket lottery ties up fans' money for months
Posted
Apr 04 2008, 05:24 PM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Joseph S. Enoch at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com.
The National Collegiate Athletics Association has implemented a ticketing practice that requires consumers to pay money just for the opportunity enter a lottery for the much-coveted men's and women's basketball tournament tickets.
The NCAA charges consumers a nonrefundable "service charge" that goes as high as $9 per ticket just to enter a competitive lottery, according to application forms for the 2009 men's and women's tournaments.
Ticket applications for the early rounds for next year's men's basketball tournaments were due March 1 and required the consumer to pay about $200 plus a $9 service charge for each ticket. Consumers can apply for as many as eight tickets.
The NCAA will sit on all that money before finally drawing applications in June. If a consumer's application is drawn, he or she will receive the tickets they paid for back in March. If not, they will receive a refund for the tickets while the NCAA keeps the service charge -- as much as $72 total -- and presumably all the interest earned in the meantime.
Early-round applications are submitted to the arenas where the games will be played, rather than to the NCAA. The arenas get a small cut from the service charge, but most of it goes to the NCAA, according to an official at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C., host to six games in the first two rounds of the 2009 men's tournament. The official asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak about the matter.
Final Four and Championship tickets for both the women's and men's 2009 tournament are purchased directly from the NCAA's Web site, where consumers can complete an online application that again enters a competitive lottery.
Consumers can submit up to 10 applications, for two tickets each, for those games and are charged a nonrefundable $6 service charge for each entry. The tickets cost as much as $170 each. For those last two rounds, the NCAA sits on the cash for five months before informing consumers whether they are one of the lucky few with a ticket. The application does not specify when a refund, minus the service charge, will be made.
One consumer who brought this to the attention of ConsumerAffairs.com said he applies for NCAA tournament tickets every year and that last year was the first year the NCAA implemented the service charge. The consumer wished to remain anonymous for fear of being "blacklisted" from further NCAA events, he wrote in an e-mail.
The NCAA did not draw his application for the 2008 tournament and took nine months to issue a refund, he wrote.
The NCAA "kept our money for nine months and then had the gall to keep our $72!" he wrote. "Given the sheer number of applicants for tickets versus the number of available seats, they have to be making a killing on this."
Unheard of
One consumer advocate who specializes in ticketing scams said he had never heard of any ticketing lottery that charges consumers ahead of time for the tickets and, worse yet, doesn't refund all the money.
"Typically you throw your name in the hat and if it's drawn, then they charge you for the tickets," said Russ Haven, legislative counsel for the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
"You don't have to loan them money," he said.
Haven added that he's not surprised by the NCAA's actions. The NCAA allows corporations to buy up many of the good seats at sporting events before they are opened to the public, he said. The NCAA's online ticketing screen for the men's and women's 2009 Final Four and Championship games are only for select sections in the uppermost regions of the arenas.
"I like to believe the NCAA stands for 'No Chance at Admission,'" Haven said.
The anonymous consumer wrote that he was able to get back his $72 in service charges from the NCAA by fighting through his credit card company. He said he will do the same thing next year if his application is not selected.
"It's always good to have your credit card company between you and your vendor," Haven said.
After two days of attempts by ConsumerAffairs.com to get a comment, NCAA representative Gail Dent returned a phone call and promised three times to answer our questions by this morning. She did not return two subsequent e-mails, and the NCAA's PR office did not answer its phone this afternoon.
Other articles of interest at ConsumerAffairs.com:
"Should you buy a secondhand Prius?"
"Apple sued over 'millions of colors' claim"
