The Highs and Lows of College Football (Ticket Resales): Chronicling Shifts in Law-Open2 Listserv Ticket Resale Prices for the Michigan-Texas Game, August-September 2024
Abstract
In the days leading up to the 2024 Michigan-Texas football game, significant activity and price fluctuations were observed in the resale of tickets to the game on the email listserv “Law-Open2.” Minimum and maximum prices were recorded for both the sale and purchase of tickets, as well as the number of sale and purchase offers made per day on the listserv.
In late August 2024, the number of sale offers was consistently low. The first days of September saw the number of sales offers made increase dramatically, concurrently with a precipitous decline in offered resale prices. Sales prices remained at a high, stable price from late August 2024 before declining dramatically in the first days of September. Offers to purchase tickets remained insignificant initially, before becoming the majority of instances in the day before and the day of the game.
Social factors on Law-Open2 may have played a role in creating momentum for the trends observed, initially in maintaining the high initial price, and later in motivating declines in listed prices as the number of offers made increased.
Introduction
Law-Open2 is an email listserv open to all law students at the University of Michigan Law School. In the fall, a recurring activity on Law-Open2 is the resale of tickets to University of Michigan football games, usually signified by the abbreviation lines “WTS” (“Want to Sell” [a ticket]), or “WTB” (“Want to Buy” [a ticket]). In the last days of August and the first days of September 2024, a flurry of activity in the listserv was seen in relation to the selling and buying of tickets for Michigan’s game against Texas, which took place on Saturday, September 7, 2024. The intent of this study is to record what happened on Law-Open2 in relation to ticket bargaining ahead of the 2024 Michigan-Texas game, as well as to posit explanations as to why events happened in the manner that they did.
Methods
Using the search function on Microsoft Outlook (classic), I searched the phrases “WTS Texas” and “WTB Texas” in my @umich.edu inbox after kickoff took place — by which point the tickets would presumably lose all value if not in use. For each day that offers took place, I recorded the minimum and maximum prices offered on the listserv for both “WTS” and “WTB” onto tables in Microsoft Excel. I also repeated this for the number of “WTS” and “WTB” offers made per day in the same time period. I then visualized these figures onto line charts.
Results
Table 1: Want to Sell (WTS) — in United States Dollars (USD/$)
| Month | Day of Month | Day of Week | Minimum Price | Maximum Price |
| August | 21 | Wednesday | 300 | 300 |
| August | 22 | Thursday | 300 | 300 |
| August | 23 | Friday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 24 | Saturday | 300 | 300 |
| August | 25 | Sunday | 300 | 300 |
| August | 26 | Monday | 290 | 300 |
| August | 27 | Tuesday | 260 | 300 |
| August | 28 | Wednesday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 29 | Thursday | 325 | 350 |
| August | 30 | Friday | 300 | 300 |
| August | 31 | Saturday | 270 | 300 |
| September | 1 | Sunday | 300 | 350 |
| September | 2 | Monday | 260 | 300 |
| September | 3 | Tuesday | 250 | 300 |
| September | 4 | Wednesday | 150 | 250 |
| September | 5 | Thursday | 110 | 250 |
| September | 6 | Friday | 75 | 125 |
| September | 7 | Saturday | 100 | 125 |
A uniform WTS price of $300 was observed from August 21 (first instance) to August 25. From there, variation was seen in the minimum WTS prices, sometimes declining and sometimes increasing, before consistently falling by September 2. The maximum WTS price peaked on 29 August at $350 and remained at $300 until September 3. Thereafter, both minimum and maximum WTS prices declined quickly, with the minimum price falling faster and earlier, eventually stabilizing on game day at ~$100-125.
Figure 1
Table 2: Want to Buy (WTB) – in United States Dollars (USD/$)
| Month | Day of Month | Day of Week | Minimum Price | Maximum Price |
| August | 21 | Wednesday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 22 | Thursday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 23 | Friday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 24 | Saturday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 25 | Sunday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 26 | Monday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 27 | Tuesday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 28 | Wednesday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 29 | Thursday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 30 | Friday | N/A | N/A |
| August | 31 | Saturday | N/A | N/A |
| September | 1 | Sunday | N/A | N/A |
| September | 2 | Monday | N/A | N/A |
| September | 3 | Tuesday | N/A | N/A |
| September | 4 | Wednesday | N/A | N/A |
| September | 5 | Thursday | N/A | N/A |
| September | 6 | Friday | 50 | 100 |
| September | 7 | Saturday | 0.01 | 125 |
Very few outright prices were observed in WTB emails — most instead provided instructions along the lines of “name your price” to prospective purchasers. One email on game day, in which a ticket was sought for “next to nothing,” was interpreted to mean one cent. The dearth of data for pricing in WTB emails precluded effective visualization in a line chart.
Table 3: Number of offers issued per day
| Month | Day of Month | Day of Week | WTS | WTB |
| August | 21 | Wednesday | 1 | 0 |
| August | 22 | Thursday | 1 | 1 |
| August | 23 | Friday | 0 | 0 |
| August | 24 | Saturday | 1 | 0 |
| August | 25 | Sunday | 1 | 1 |
| August | 26 | Monday | 4 | 2 |
| August | 27 | Tuesday | 5 | 1 |
| August | 28 | Wednesday | 0 | 2 |
| August | 29 | Thursday | 4 | 2 |
| August | 30 | Friday | 0 | 0 |
| August | 31 | Saturday | 3 | 0 |
| September | 1 | Sunday | 11 | 0 |
| September | 2 | Monday | 10 | 0 |
| September | 3 | Tuesday | 19 | 0 |
| September | 4 | Wednesday | 15 | 0 |
| September | 5 | Thursday | 11 | 0 |
| September | 6 | Friday | 10 | 14 |
| September | 7 | Saturday | 4 | 9 |
The number of WTS offers issued per day on Law-Open2 remained relatively low from the first recorded instance on August 21, before increasing dramatically from 3 (August 31) to 11 (September 1), and peaking at 19 offers issued on September 3. Thereafter, the number of WTS offers issued declined just as quickly as they had risen, falling to 11 on September 5, 10 on September 6, and 4 on gameday itself, September 7.
The number of WTB offers issued per day on Law-Open2 was either similar to or lower than the number of WTS offers for most of the observed period and appeared to cease entirely from August 30 to September 5. However, WTB offers increased dramatically the next day on September 6, outpacing WTS offers for the first time. This would happen again on the final day of the observed period, game day on September 7.
Figure 2
Discussion
The high prices for tickets that were sustained for much of the observed period — around $300 — is notable, especially given that the price for an entire home season football ticket set was $216 this year. Even the lowest prices witnessed — $75 for WTS and $50 for WTB — were both in excess of the $27 per game at which the student ticket price for football is assessed.
Why the fluctuations in ticket price and number of offers made took place is an interesting question. A relatively low minimum WTS price of $260 was witnessed on August 27, but this was quickly followed up by a minimum WTS price of $325 on the 29th. It was not until several days of lowered minimum WTS prices occurred — $270 on August 31, $260 on September 2, and $250 on September 3 — that the momentum shifted from sustaining prices to lowering them, with maximum offers racing behind to keep pace with the falling minimum. A drastic increase in the number of offers made per day in the first days of September might have also helped fuel this downward momentum, as feedback on proposed prices could be viewed by others on the listserv as quickly as by the hour.
The social characteristics of Law-Open2 may have affected the course of events. It is a closed environment, comprised entirely of students at the University of Michigan Law School, and is thus relatively homogenous in this respect. The listserv is mostly unmoderated, but the close proximity of members to one another might encourage generally good-faith behavior towards one another.
Compared to alternate venues for selling tickets, Law-Open2 is also a very public venue, with prices and offers displayed openly throughout the day in people’s email inboxes, which might influence people’s plans to sell or purchase tickets, and at what prices, on a short notice. By comparison, one of these alternate venues, the MLaw Ticket Marketplace, is more discrete in form (it is a shared Google Sheet spreadsheet), and thus easier to ignore if one does not have pre-determined plans to sell or purchase ticket(s).
Limitations
Due to time limitations, I was unable to flesh out additional data and visualizations, including, but not limited to:
- Creating box-and-whisker plots for each day (and collecting the relevant data to do so), which would depict not only the minimum and maximum prices, but would also show median, first quartile, and third quartile prices
- Searching for relevant emails which did not contain the keywords “WTS Texas” or “WTB Texas.”
- Analysis of price shifts by the hour within certain days, particularly from August 31 to September 5.
- Qualitative data collection and analysis with Law-Open2 members who participated in ticket sales and purchasing, along with the requisite ethical considerations and certifications.
Additionally, the results here should not be interpreted to be wholly applicable to similar, yet ultimately separate events — such as the resale of tickets to other football games in the season, some of which was happening concurrently during the observed time period.
Conclusion
After relative stability in a low number of offers and high resale prices for several days, the first days of September 2024 saw a dramatic increase in the number of WTS offers issued per day on Law-Open2 — but along with it, declines in the price of tickets for sale, as discounts were offered to undercut prior high prices. It is suspected that social factors in Law-Open2 may have played a role in setting forth this series of events. This occurred both in social factors encouraging people to sell tickets at high prices, as well as in driving the rapid decline of prices in the first week of September, as resellers publicly competed with each other to set prices that were reasonably competitive for buyers, yet still profitable for themselves relative to the high starting mark.
In the day before and the day of the game itself, prices for tickets offered for sale and requested for purchase on Law-Open2 eventually stabilized at ~$100-125.
Res Gestae Contributor Austin Wu can be reached at austwu@umich.edu.
