By Christopher D. Silbernagel
From youth tournaments in small towns to global spectacles like World Cups and the Olympics, sports tourism is a dynamic, growing industry,yet the benefits it delivers are increasingly shaped by how tickets are sold and how participation is priced. Price gouging, scalping and blurred ticketing schemes are causing trust to falter, raising barriers for families and creating headaches for event organisers. They are also spurring new solutions. For destinations, CVBs, and sports commissions, understanding these pressures is essential to balancing economic impact with accessibility.
Professional Sports: Ticketing in Transition
Scalping, price gouging and dynamic pricing are most visible at the professional level, where the demand for tickets often exceeds the supply. While regulated resale platforms like StubHub and Vivid Seats offer verified tickets and buyer protection, the proposed price caps risk pushing fans back into unregulated areas.
Evidence from overseas highlights the danger. Fraud rates were nearly four times higher in capped markets like Australia and the Republic of Ireland than in uncapped ones. For example, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission reported that fraud related to Taylor Swift’s 2024 Eras Tour had reached more than $135,000 in losses.
Meanwhile, the U.S. regulatory landscape remains uneven. While 48 states currently allow tickets to be resold at market rates, scalpers often exploit gaps. A recent Federal Trade Commission complaint showed how one Maryland-based broker group used bots and fake accounts to buy nearly 380,000 tickets to various events in a single year, which they had resold for millions in profit.
Now, even organizers themselves are reshaping the rules. FIFA, through its FIFA Collect platform, sold “Right to Buy” tokens—some priced at around $3,000—before revealing actual ticket prices. The program generated at least $15 million in revenue without issuing a single World Cup ticket. For critics, this resembles “sanctioned scalping,” blurring the line between innovation and exploitation.
These types of mega events certainly bring a different challenge. Research on sports-led tourism from a 2023 journal showed that hotel demand often spikes during tournaments, but not all growth is additive. Regular visitors may be displaced, meaning event-driven revenue is partly a reshuffle rather than a net gain.
Dynamic Ticket Pricing and Fan Perceptions
Dynamic ticket pricing (DTP) has transformed the economics of live sports. Borrowed from the airline and hotel industries, it allows teams to adjust ticket costs in real time based on demand, rivalries, timing, and even weather. While this model maximizes short-term revenue and can help fill seats for less attractive games, the reception among fans is mixed.
A recent study published in the COSMA Journal provides some of the clearest insights to date on how fans view DTP. Researchers found that younger fans tend to be more sensitive to rising prices, particularly for marquee matchups, yet they do not necessarily view the system as less fair. Instead, their willingness to accept fluctuating prices depends heavily on transparency. Fans who understood why prices shifted reported far higher levels of trust and satisfaction than those who were left guessing. When teams communicated clearly about pricing rules, trust increased significantly, as did overall satisfaction with the ticket-buying process.
Promotional incentives play a critical role as well. Discounts for multi-game bundles, loyalty rewards for season ticket holders, and other perks like early entry and free merchandise helped counteract negative perceptions of fairness. Fans were more likely to view DTP as equitable when promotions were in play, and attendance rates at lower-demand games rose noticeably when paired with such offers. The takeaway for organizers is that promotions are not just bonuses, but essential tools for smoothing over concerns about fluctuating prices.
Case studies are reinforcing these findings. The San Francisco Giants, the first Major League Baseball team to fully embrace DTP, saw a 7% increase in ticket revenue within its first season of use. However, it wasn’t just the algorithm that drove results; it was how the team framed the system. By emphasizing that fans could still access affordable options for weekday or off-peak games, the Giants built trust in a model that could otherwise have been perceived as exploitative.
The Boston Celtics illustrate another layer of strategy where rivalry games against the LosAngeles Lakers commanded premium prices, but the team balanced those spikes by coupling other matchups with unique promotions, such as player-tribute nights or commemorative giveaways. One jersey retirement ceremony tied to dynamic pricing generated record single-game revenue for the franchise. These examples highlight that when promotions and narratives are layered onto DTP, fans are more willing to accept pricing variation as part of the broader entertainment experience.
Loyalty is also central, as committed fans often tolerate price variation more readily than casual attendees. Die-hard fans frame DTP through an emotional bond with their team, seeing higher prices as part of the cost of “belonging.” Casual fans, by contrast, are far more likely to interpret price hikes as unfair, making them a harder sell. This divide underscores why communication and promotions are so important since they can bridge the gap between loyalty-driven tolerance and casual consumer skepticism.
“Similar to youth sports, it comes down to having the conversation: supply and demand is real, but so is the moral obligation,” said John David, president and CEO of the Sports Events &Tourism Association (Sports ETA).“ When your core fans are priced out, you risk losing your base. That doesn’t happen overnight, but eventually you’ll see declining ticket sales. The pressure from private equity and corporate ownership models adds to this. Quarterly returns can drive short-term decisions that don’t build long-term loyalty.”
Ultimately, when a short-term profit scheme like DTP is used without transparency, it can cut into loyalty and drive fans toward secondary markets where perceptions of value may feel more aligned with reality. This can lead to a loss of long-term profits by damaging the potential future fan base as younger adults and children, in part due to a world of higher prices across many spectrums, are raised to be more cautious with their spending.
Potential Consequences for Destinations and Event Organizers
According to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, 39.8% of U.S. children aged 6–17regularly played on a team in 2023, the highest rate since 2015, and a sign of renewed momentum for youth sports. This rise in participation is not only encouraging for the sportstourism industry and local economies, but also for public health as obesity rates continue to remain high. However, price gouging, scalping and DTPripple far beyond the fans at arenas and stadiums for pro sports franchises with rising costs to play, threatening youth sports.
Families are now spending more than $1,000 a year on a child’s primary sport,a46% increase since 2019, according to the Aspen Institute’s 2024 parent survey. Traveling team tournaments add another layer.Entry fees for a four-day baseball tournament can exceed $3,000, and that’s before adding hotel, meals and transportation costs.
“We assist the event organizer on hotel accommodations to try to keep the rates at the best possible level for families,” said Tammy Dunn, executive director of Snohomish County Sports Commission.“ Hotel costs may increase depending on the season, but we aim to help families manage those expenses, such as avoiding the use of third-party housing companies.” Trade policies are also reshaping the cost structure. The U.S. imports more sporting goods than any other country, accounting for 31% of global imports in 2022, according to the World Trade Organization. Much of this equipment comes from Asian nations like China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Taiwan. Tariffs on these imports have the potential to raise prices on bats, gloves and other essentials—we won’t even get into ice hockey as that’s another beast entirely—which raises the risk of children being “priced out”from participation.
This is caused by the burden falling unevenly, as families earning under $25,000 annually saw only 25% of their children regularly play sports in 2023, compared to 43.5% of households making more than $100,000, according to the Aspen Institute. That gap underscores how rising costs reinforce existing socioeconomic divides. The stakes are high as steep participation costs limit which families attend, reducing targeted inclusivity and putting pressure on organizers to balance economic opportunity with affordability. For destinations, they must justify hosting costs with tangible economic benefits while managing concerns about equity, pricing, access, and other potential issues.
How does pricing out fans from pro sports affect youth sports? Loyalty. If a young sports fan is unable to attend games for their team, watch them on television, or even play competitively because their family cannot afford these luxuries, what happens when they become adults? The likelihood of distancing themselves from sports is more likely, which affects long-term gains. Asport only thrives at any level when it has the numbers to keep the pillars steady.
Policy and Long-Term Solution
Governments and industry groups are testing ways to curb abuse. The U.S. enacted the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS Act), making it illegal to bypass ticket purchase limits with bots. Recent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement shows the law has teeth, even going after Live Nation and Ticketmaster with a lawsuit in September 2025, yet a patchwork of state resale rules continues to complicate compliance.
Ultimately, this is a complicated set of problems that requires patience to resolve. By allowing the implementation of practices for considerable lengths of time unchecked, such as price gouging and dynamic ticket pricing, it’s now difficult to remove them like a Band-Aid. Instead, all groups will need to come together to hammer out a middle ground—one that keeps investors and their short-term gain mentalities involved but in check while strategically balancing inclusivity, affordability, and long-term profits.
“Some leagues and venues are making smart moves—offering affordable ticket packages, family nights or other value plays,” said David.“ That’s wise. Nobody wants the live game experience reduced to a $20 beer stereotype. Long-term sustainability requires balance.”
Key Stats (use these in a box)
- $40B Annual value of U.S. youth sports (NYT)
- 46% Increase in average family spending on a child’s primary sport since 2019 (Aspen Institute)
- $ 3,145 Typical entry fee for a four-day youth baseball tournament (NYT)
- 379,776 Tickets illegally acquired by one broker group in a year (FTC)
- 4x higher Fraud rates in capped ticket markets like Ireland and Victoria, Australia (Ticket Fraud Study, 2025)
- $15M+ FIFA revenue from “Right to Buy” tokens before selling a single 2026 World Cup ticket (The Athletic)
