Ticket Scams and Scalpers Putting a Damper on NFL

This off-season has been unique for the NFL in regards to their long-standing ticket policy. The NFL states that it is forbidden for any team employee to scalp tickets. According to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello the league’s commissioner Paul Tagliabue would determine the punishment for such a transaction.

So why then have there been several abuses of this policy this off-season? The answer is simple, greed. Or is it simply the result of the level of worth the NFL is today? The NFL the remainder of this off-season will no doubt carefully review these questions.

In the well-documented case against Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Tice the league learned from allegations that he scalped Super Bowl tickets when he was an assistant coach with the Vikings. Tice vehemently denied scalping tickets since he became a head coach.

Tice, however, acknowledged to NFL security investigators that he scalped part of his personal allotment of 12 tickets to this February’s Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots.

This violation of league rules resulted in Tice being fined by the league office. Also named in this investigation was Vikings running backs coach Dean Dalton, who also met with investigators.

NFL players, club personnel and coaches can buy Super Bowl tickets, yet they are then obligated to sign a document stating they will not re-sell the tickets for a profit.

Tice, in the final year of his contract that ranks him as one of the lowest paid coaches in the league, is not alone in this problem. Nor was he the first to think of doing what he acknowledged he did.

In 1986 the husband of Rams owner Georgia Frontiere, Dominic Frontiere, pleaded guilty to not reporting income made from the sale of some 2,500 scalped tickets to the 1980 Super Bowl. The Frontiere’s later divorced and Dominic was sentenced to one year and a day in jail along with three years probation.

Just recently, a former Cleveland Browns employee pleaded guilty for his part in a scam in which seats that should have gone to fans on a team waiting list went instead to a ticket agency and its broker.

John Tironi, 32, was fired as the team’s football ticket manager. His co-conspirator in the case Amazing Tickets owner Mark Klang, 29, and Tironi each plead guilty June 9, 2005 to a single conspiracy count in U.S. District Court. Their plea agreements were filed with the court on June 10th. If convicted, each could face five years in prison. Their sentencing is November 15th.

In exchange for $5,000 a month Tironi plotted to divert personal seat licenses and tickets to Klang, prosecutors said. The scam netted more than $194,000 between 2002 and 2003.

The NFL will re-evaluate its policies for distribution of Super Bowl tickets this spring, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said. While defending the league's current ticket practices, Tagliabue said the NFL would continue discussing these matters over the summer.

Amid the chaos of contract holdouts and injuries and the occasional drug related suspension the NFL needs to get control of their tickets before they begin to lose control of the league. The product and merchandise are all at all time highs in value it would be a shame to lower them by allowing greed to destroy what they have built.