Tickets to the biggest Warriors home game in years lasted minutes. Then they came back, at three, five and ten times what they cost.
Seats for Saturday’s NRL qualifying final against the Dolphins at Go Media Stadium went on general sale at midday on Tuesday 8 September and sold out almost immediately, filling the Penrose ground to about 25,000. Warriors members had first crack from midday on Monday, with non-ticketed members from 6pm, and Dolphins members also getting access from 6pm, according to the Auckland Stadiums event page. Plenty of members still missed out. “I missed out on all three sale times, and I’m a member! Not impressed,” one fan wrote on the Up the WAHS Facebook group.
Not long afterwards the same seats were appearing on Trade Me. RNZ found one listing offering four Eastern Stand tickets for a buy now price of $1200, described by the seller as “arguably the best seats in the house. Right where the Warriors walk out”. Another wanted $500 for two uncovered South Stand seats. Those seats normally cost $25 for an adult during the regular season and were priced at around $45 for the final.
By Thursday morning the market had not cooled. A Trade Me search for “warriors dolphins” returned 45 results, 31 of them under travel, events and activities. A pair of South Stand tickets had bidding sitting at $260 with the reserve met. A single ticket in the Tryline Club was listed at $700. Three Upper West Stand seats were up at $449, and one seller had single South Stand tickets on a $125 buy now, close to three times what the stadium charged for them.
The question and answer sections underneath filled up with angry fans. “You’re a dog for selling these tickets to make money and actual fans can’t even go to see it live,” one person wrote. “You are an actual scumbag,” posted another. One seller left the abuse visible and answered it. “I get you are pissed off and I can understand why,” they wrote. “But honestly there’s people selling hundreds of tickets a game. Not worth stressing out over a couple of tickets – take on the real problem instead.”
Here is the part most angry fans do not realise. Reselling a Warriors final ticket at ten times face value is not against the law in this country. The Commerce Commission states plainly that there is no law in New Zealand preventing event tickets being resold above their original price, with one exception. That exception is the Major Events Management Act 2007, and it only bites when an event has been formally declared a major event by the Governor-General.
Where a declaration exists, the Act is blunt. Section 25 says no person may, without the authorisation of the major event organiser, sell or trade a ticket to a major event activity for a value greater than the original sale price of that ticket, and the original sale price includes booking fees and courier charges. Section 26 makes it an offence carrying a fine of up to $5,000. The Commission gives the 2011 Rugby World Cup and the 2017 Lions tour as examples, and notes that no concert has ever been declared. Trade Me is not pulling the Warriors listings, which tells you the qualifying final carries no such declaration.
So the fallback is the ticketing company’s own rules, and those have limits too. Ticketmaster is the official agent for the Warriors and caps resales on its own platform at 120 per cent of the original value. That cap governs Ticketmaster’s resale marketplace only. It does nothing about a seller putting the same barcode on Trade Me. Ticketmaster did not respond to RNZ’s requests for comment.
Trade Me says it is not the referee here. James Ryan, the site’s policy and compliance manager, told RNZ that listings are only pulled if a member cannot prove they hold the tickets, if the organiser has cancelled them, or if the event falls under the Major Events Management Act. “For us it’s a balancing act,” Ryan said. “It’s disappointing if genuine fans aren’t able to get their hands on tickets when they are made available, for whatever reason.” He added that the site gives fans who missed out another shot, with prices reflecting “market forces at work”.
Sports broadcaster Sam Ackerman put the counter case on The League Fix Facebook page, arguing that reselling at a big profit cuts against the culture the club has built on cheap seats and long loyalty. “Those who grabbed tickets with only the intent to make a profit have also screwed over members – people they might sit nearby for all home games all season – who missed out on being able to be there to see the reward of their loyal support,” Ackerman wrote. “Missing out on tickets due to fan demand, all with the same opportunity is part of life. But missing that chance because someone chose to make a profit they did nothing to earn is hard to digest.”
Governments have looked at this before and stopped short. On 4 March 2019 then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and then Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said the Government planned to stop ticket scalping. Measures planned, Ardern said, included “a price cap on resale tickets, enforcing rules around information that needs to be disclosed to better inform consumers, and banning ticket-buying “bots””. Seven years on, the Commerce Commission page still says no such law exists.
Fans buying off a marketplace should also read the fine print. Auckland Stadiums warns that it cannot guarantee the validity or authenticity of tickets bought from third party sellers such as Viagogo or individuals on other online marketplaces, and that non-valid tickets will be refused entry.
The squeeze may ease if the Warriors keep winning. The club finished second and the Dolphins third, and a win on Saturday earns a week off and a home preliminary final. NRL boss Peter V’landys told the Sydney Morning Herald that game is all but certain to shift to Eden Park and its 50,000 seats. “I’d say you’d be 90 per cent sure that we’ll be going to Eden Park,” V’landys said, a move the club has resisted because Mount Smart is home. Twice the seats would at least mean half as many fans reading listings and swearing at strangers.
Kick off on Saturday 12 September is at 6.05pm, with gates open from 4.30pm.
Have you been priced out of a game you wanted to see, or do you think sellers are entitled to whatever the market pays? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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