Selling a 70,000 won baseball ticket bundled with photo cards for 210,000 won — is this real? Baseball fans frustrated by "sneaky tie-in sales" scalping

*This content was translated by AI.View Original

Although the revised Anti-Scalping Act has been fully implemented, "sneaky scalping" in which baseball tickets are bundled with merchandise for sale is rampant, causing frustration among baseball fans.

At the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee national audit held on the 7th, People Power Party lawmaker Jung Yeon-wook (Busan Suyeong-gu) revealed the state of variant transactions that cleverly evade the regulations of the Anti-Scalping Act at professional baseball venues and elsewhere.

According to listings on a second-hand trading site presented by Jeong (Rep.), a post was openly displayed selling three baseball tickets, each with a face value of 72,000 won, along with five photo cards priced at 138,000 won, for a total of 210,000 won. The seller explicitly stated that "buying only the tickets is absolutely not allowed," imposing a blatant condition of forced sale of the photo cards.

As selling tickets themselves at a markup became subject to enforcement, sellers are matching ticket prices to face value and extracting exorbitant profits from unrelated merchandise to secure actual scalping revenue. Similar tactics are spreading across both stadiums and performance venues; in the entertainment industry, for instance, tickets with a face value of 165,000 won have been listed at 37 times that amount, or 6.2 million won, while others are being sold for 1,596,000 won under the guise of "ticket cost plus merchandise."

Jeong (Rep.) pointed out, "The structure involves attaching face value to tickets and ultimately recovering the markup through other items sold as tie-ins," adding, "Scalpers are completely mocking legal regulations." He further noted, "The methods are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with cases emerging of scalpers earning 2.4 billion won over seven years and using the proceeds to purchase commercial properties."

Fan losses caused by the time lag between reporting and enforcement also came under scrutiny. Currently, the process involves a multi-step structure where, after a report is received at the center, it is reported to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and referred to the police for investigation to identify the seller; however, by the time this is completed, the game day has often already passed, failing to prevent the damage. Jeong (Rep.) urged the introduction of a "one-stop response system" that significantly reduces these steps to minimize on-site losses.

In response, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choi Hui-young stated during the national audit, "Since the revised National Sports Promotion Act and Performance Act took effect on August 28, we have received approximately 30,000 reports in just over a month and blocked all of them."

He continued, "The 'tie-in sales' trick pointed out is also recognized as clear unfair trading," adding, "We have referred 170 people to the police for investigation, including operators using such methods. We will strongly block illegal transactions through active arrests and the imposition of fines."

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*This content was translated by AI.View Original