By Theodore Lewis
Bridgman, MI—When I was in the School of Business at Andrews University, I learned about the law of supply and demand in class from my professor, Harold Phillips.
In 1975, I ordered four season tickets to the Detroit Lions’ inaugural season at the Pontiac Silverdome. I paid $10 for each ticket. When the Lions played the Chicago Bears that year, I invited Dr. Phillips to go to the game with me as he was an avid Chicago Bears fan.
It was a three-hour trip over to the Silverdome from Berrien Springs, Michigan. Most of the 80,000 tickets to the game had already been sold, with only a few left at the box office. On the way to the game, I explained that I had two extra tickets I would try to sell outside the stadium. Dr. Phillips said that this exercise would give us a good lesson in the law of supply and demand.
Back then, tickets were beautifully designed with team graphics and logos on glossy paper. At the stadium entrance, the ticket would be torn in half. The stadium retained one-half of the ticket to be used for attendance tallying, while the other half served as the seat locator and a souvenir.
Standing outside the stadium entrance, I began asking $30 each for my two extra tickets. There were no takers at that price. I successfully sold them when I lowered the price to $15 each.
Thus began my "professional" experience in buying and selling tickets to professional football games. In 1982, I would try to buy a ticket to the Super Bowl played at the Pontiac Silverdome. In that instance, I was unsuccessful but attended the game anyway by climbing a fence.
This 2024 NFL season, the Detroit Lions have had a level of success not seen in my lifetime—literally. Going into the Thanksgiving game week, the Lions were 10-1 —a winning record after eleven games that they had not achieved since 1934.
A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, as I contemplated how many lifetimes it might take to experience a year like the Detroit Lions were having, I decided I had to go to the Thanksgiving Day game against the Chicago Bears on Nov. 28. Tickets to the entire 2024 season of the Lions's home games were sold out before the season started.
As it had been many years since I had purchased tickets to a sporting event, I learned about the process of buying a ticket in the "aftermarket,” where ticket holders resell tickets. Ticketmaster, Stub Hub, TickPick and GameTime are among the buyers and sellers of tickets to sporting events and concerts.
I learned that tickets nowadays come in the form of a barcode or QR code that is scanned at the stadium entrance. I also learned that the prices being asked for the Nov. 28 Thanksgiving game started at $300, with most tickets in the $400-$500 range and prime locations going for $800 to $1,000 per ticket. These prices were all above my budget. However, I reasoned that with the law of supply and demand, if I waited until the morning of the game (game start time was 12:30 p.m.), I could obtain an unsold ticket for between $100-$200, which was within by budget.
After settling into my hotel room on Thanksgiving eve, I looked online at the ticket prices for the upcoming game. I was amazed to see that prices had risen from the previous day’s levels.
At 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, I checked the prices again and was utterly dismayed that the prices had gone up even further. I told myself not to worry as the approaching kickoff time and the law of supply and demand would bring the price within my budget range.
An hour before kickoff I entered a parking garage a few blocks from Ford Field and took out my fully charged smart phone. Prices were starting to come down but were still too high for me. Then, at 11:40 a.m., 50 minutes before kickoff, I found a single ticket in my price range. I purchased it immediately. I received an email confirmation that would contain the bar code I would need to gain entrance to the stadium.
To save time, I hailed a cab and was dropped off a block away from the stadium. Oh no! It was now noon and the lines were still long, with thousands of fans queuing for entrance. While the temperature inside Ford Field would be a controlled 72, outside it was cold and windy. I hadn't anticipated having to wait long outside, so I only had a light jacket on.
While I waited in line, I decided it would be prudent to pull up the barcode on my phone. After attempting to open the barcode link, I struggled with the authentication process. To download the barcode, I needed to type in the confirmation code sent via a separate email. Now, I couldn’t get back from the email screen to the one with the barcode. My failed attempts triggered a password-change alert. Help! Where was my step-granddaughter Madison (a real tech guru) when I needed her?
As I inched closer and closer to the entrance, I began to panic. There was no fence to climb here and it was 12:15 p.m.
I finally reached the security check point and was cleared to get in place for one of the many lines being manned by stadium personnel with electronic scanners. I managed to stay calm on my exterior, but inside, I was terrified. What should I do?
After saying a prayer, I got in a scanner line being manned by a young man who couldn't have been a day over 21. “Sir, I can't get the ticket to come up on my phone, can you help me?” I asked.
"Come in the door out of the cold, stand behind me while I check others in, and I will try to help you," he kindly said. After about five minutes on my phone, which seemed like an eternity, he said he couldn't get it to come up either and called his supervisor.
By this time, I can hear renowned Saxophonist Mike Phillips playing the National Anthem.
When the supervisor arrived, a woman in her 40s, the young employee explained the situation to her while continuing to scan people in. The first thing she did was chew him out for letting me in the door.
"Ma’am, it's Thanksgiving, don't blame him; he is just trying to do his job." I said to her forcefully. "I have purchased a ticket to the game and need help pulling it up on my phone."
Finally, the holiday spirit came over her and she began helping me. After three to four minutes, she was able to retrieve my barcode, and it was accepted by the scanner.
As I made my way up to Section 334, Row 7, Seat 13, with only a piece of cyberspace to show my authentication, I thought to myself, “Give me the good ol' days, when having a paper ticket felt like holding a treasure.”
Theodore Lewis is the former CEO of Guam Memorial Hospital and has a healthcare consulting business in Bridgman, MI. He is collecting stories about lessons learned in life and can be reached at theodorelewis@yahoo.com.
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