UP388 The Ticket Market Doesn't Work - Will Labour Regulation Make It Better?

Unofficial Partner Podcast

Everyone agrees the current sports ticketing market doesn't work. It rips off fans, is vulnerable to touts and is an inefficient way to manage supply and demand.
But is regulation the answer?
Labour will cap the resale prices of tickets and regulate resale platforms if the party wins the next general election, Sir Keir Starmer said recently. The plans will clamp down on ticket touts who rip off music and sports fans going to live events, Sir Keir said.
The party says it will address ticket touting – buying up tickets to sell on at inflated profits – by capping resale prices and giving the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) powers to regulate resale platforms.
A strong pre-election soundbite, after all who doesn't want cheaper tickets.
This podcast discusses the second level implications of regulation and uses it as a way in to assess the problem with the ticket market, one of the key pillars of sports revenue generation and asset value.
Our guests are Simon Bazalgette and Matt Drew.
Simon was chief executive of The Jockey Club during a long career across sport and music industries, and now chairs investment and advisory business called Global Venue Services.
Matt leads on overseas development for Viagogo/Stubhub, the secondary ticket marketplace, having held senior roles at Perform, DAZN, OPTA and WWE.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner
We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.