Supply And Demand
Some penguin fans are willing to wait in line for hours, pay high prices to scalpers, for a chance to get their hands on tickets to the hottest event in Pittsburgh, the Stanley Cup Final Playoffs. They use many resources available to try to get tickets, scalpers, StubHub, and eBay. The demand has driven the prices for some seats to nearly $9000 for Igloo club seats. True hockey fans are willing to do whatever it takes because they know the last time the Penguins were in the Stanley Cup finals was a long time ago, 1992 to be exact. “I would sell my girlfriend for a girlfriend for some tickets” says one Penguin fan. Fans waited in line all day and night for 40 lottery tickets that would give them a slim chance at winning that elusive ticket, while the rest were sold on Ticketmaster in matter of minutes. Police try to warn people looking for tickets from scalpers to be careful of counterfeit tickets, which is due to a high demand to see a game.
The article I believe covers many topics from the supply and demand chapter in our book. It is a situation discussed in the book under market shortage, which is an excess in quantity demand over quantity supplied. The Civic arena can only seat 17,000 fans for a Penguins hockey game, but as you can see, the demand for fans to watch a Stanley Cup final playoff game is at an all time high. People are willing to pay well over face value for tickets from scalpers because of the limited amount of seats available, and not due to price of tickets the Penguins organization sets them at. And because the prices are so high, there is a limited amount of consumer’s that are able to pay for these tickets, which I think is an example of opportunity cost. Most hockey fans are middle class people who say they are willing to pay anything to get tickets, but they are limited in their income. They are unable to forsake this luxury, a ticket to the game, over the everyday necessities critical to their life; homes, cars, clothes.
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