Lest I be accused of yelling at a cloud like an old man or moved to protest in Washington D.C. like so many Taylor Swift fans, let me assure you: Ticket fees are not new, and most of us (myself included) more or less accept them within reason as the price of doing business.
Big Ten women's basketball tournament at Target Center: Great event, but those ticket fees . . .
If you click all the way through trying to buy tickets to the Big Ten women's basketball tournament starting Wednesday at Target Center, you might want a congressional investigation.
February 27, 2023 at 5:53PM
Everyone gets a cut in the name of "convenience," and nobody is forcing you to buy a ticket to be entertained.
That said, there was at least some ticket dismay happening upon clicking through to check out prices for this week's Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament at Target Center — as Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday's Daily Delivery podcast.
The ticket prices themselves seem quite reasonable: The seven sessions Wednesday through Sunday are priced between $12 and $20, while an all-session pass is $75. With 13 games total — two per session except for Sunday's title game — that's exceedingly fair.
But it becomes harder to stomach when in some cases the fees for the sessions themselves exceed the ticket prices.
If you want to go Wednesday, for instance, to see the Gophers face Penn State (11 a.m.) and stick around for Rutgers vs. Northwestern after that, the ticket price online is $12 ... while the fees are $16.10 for a grand total of $28.10. There's the handling fee ($6.18), facility fee ($4) and web convenience fee ($5.92). In other words, the fees add about 135% to the price of the ticket.
Now, $28.10 for two games is still a decent price. Same goes for $128.28 for the all-session pass when you factor in $75 for the seats and $53.28 in fees ($6.18 for handling, $28 for the facility and $19.10 for the web convenience that no longer feels very convenient). That's an extra 71%
Paying what amounts to $10 a game to see a lot of the best women's basketball players in the country, including Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark, is not an outrage.
But it is deflating.
At least there are tickets readily available, so we don't have the dual problem of Swift fans dealing with disappearing inventory and gouging fees.
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