Hot In Here: Heat Subsidiary Files Suit Against Ticket Resellers
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Heat Subsidiary Files Lawsuit
Over Reselling Of Premium Seats |
Heat-owned Basketball Properties Ltd. (BPL), which operates AmericanAirlines Arena, last month filed a lawsuit in Miami-Dade County circuit court against online ticket reseller Tickets of America and the Florida Association of Ticket Brokers, claiming that the companies "are illegally reselling premium seats to basketball games," according to Sarah Talalay of the South Florida SUN-SENTINEL. The suit claims that the ticket company "knowingly resold the most exclusive seats ... but disguised their locations to skirt the Heat's license agreements with premium-seat ticket buyers." The suit states the agreements prohibit those buyers from "reselling their tickets through a third party and allows those resales only through TicketExchange, operated by Ticketmaster" on the Heat's Web site. Premium-seat ticket holders can "resell their tickets at any price," and after Ticketmaster charges a fee, "the seller and the Heat split the rest of the sales price." BPL attorney Alan Fein said, "We have rights and relationships with our licensees, and we're looking to protect them." He added that the franchise "would prefer not to sue its 'loyal season ticket holders...obviously some of them don't know that their agreements prohibit them from this reselling.'" However, Tickets of America President & CEO Michael Lipman said that it is "common practice to disguise seat locations to protect the seller 'from being badgered by sports teams.'" Florida state Rep. Dan Gelber said that he is "planning to file legislation this year to 'reel in some of the abuses and bring some transparency to the marketplace'" (South Florida SUN-SENTINEL, 1/16).
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