I am continually amazed by the new financial instruments that seem to emerge all the time - hedges on hedges, derivatives on derivatives. Last year, I was intrigued by housing price futures. (Baby needs a new pair of playrooms?) And the other day, I read in The Boston Globe about a big game ticket futures company, TicketReserve.com, that lets you buy options to purchase future game tickets at a certain price.
The article profiled a Patriots fan who, in October, when the Pats were looking pretty good and he was feeling bullish, had paid $1,000 for the right to buy two Super Bowl tickets for $600 a piece if the Pats made it that far.
Even though this fan really wanted to go see the Pats in the Super Bowl, he put his options out for bid during the Pats-Colts game on Sunday. The game was back-and-forth, the trading hot and heavy, and someone took the options off of his hands for $4,000. Which turned out to be a tidy profit of $3,000 for the options trader, and a loss of $4,000 for the options tradee.
It must have been a weird feeling once he'd sold the options. As the game see-sawed back and forth, I suspect the guy's emotions did, too. Damn, I'm going to miss the Super Bowl, I should have hung on. Damn, the Pats have lost. But, hot damn, I'm ahead $3K. (I bet he headed home from the bar humming the refrain from The Gambler: You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.)
And there was the options purchaser on the other end of this particular see-saw. Damn, the Pats lost, plus I'm out $4K. (I bet he headed home from the bar humming an entirely different tune.)
If you bought the options pre-season, you could get in cheap and find yourself sitting pretty at game time. Before the opening kick-off, the option prices for the four finalist teams were Pats $125, Colts $100, Bears $18, and Saints $25. So a Bears' fan who bought options at $18 - or even a Colts fan at $100 - is paying only a small relative premium on the ticket price. And the Saints and Pats fans who went long and hung on aren't crazily out of pocket, either.
I'm not much of a gambler, nor am I a crazed enough fan of any sport that I'd pay huge bucks to see a game in person that I could, in truth, watch more comfortably on TV, let alone take an option on it - so none of this holds much appeal to me. But it's interesting to see that there's a company trying to make a buck with this options play. And I hope for their sake that they sold enough options, and took enough of the vigorish, to cover all their positions. At last look, tickets in the end zone were going for $3500.
Meanwhile, there's always next year, and the action's already heating up on Super Bowl XLII. The last trade I saw for the Pats was $262 each for a pair of options to purchase $700 seats. (This was not that far off the Chargers and Colts action at $280 - although Da Bears were a bit higher: $330.)
Meanwhile, since it is already, almost baseball this year, I was curious to see what the take was on Red Sox for ALCS, or even World Series. Alas, TicketReserve may play NFL. They may play bowl games. They may play NBA and NHL. But, dammit, they don't play ball.
(A nod to my sister Trish for giving me a head's up on this story.)
They did play ball for the 2005 season... nothing last year though. NCAA Final Four trading is fun too...
ReplyDeleteAnother site that is slightly different does trade the offer World Series options at www.yoonew.com
I cannot believe that you have the audacity to say people in Boston, or anywhere, have "chosen to be poor". I've been there, done that. I did not "choose" to be born poor, neither did my hard working parents "choose to be poor". Thumbs down on you.
ReplyDeleteTeri - As a long-standing member of the board (and volunteer at) a homeless shelter here in Boston, I couldn't agree with you more that people don't "chose to be poor." I make the following three exceptions to this statement: a) writers-actors-artists-musicians and other creative people who have chosen a life in which they do without a lot of material comfort because they want to pursue their dreams; b) those who choose to work in low-paid jobs in order to do something for humankind, and for whom the trade-off is, again, not having wealth and a lot of "things"; c) anti-materialists who just chose completely a non-possession lifestyle for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteMany/most of these people come from middle-class backgrounds, and have educations that afford them many options in life. In the first two cases, they've opted to do something that is important to them - and at a cost. It's also true that, most people with these backgrounds are not living in poverty as dire as that of people born poor, and with the odds stacked against them.
Believe me when I say that people don't "chose" to be born without housing, without work, without a support network,without knowing where their next meal is coming from, with mental and physical handicaps, with no intellectual or spiritual nourishment in their lives...
If I wrote anything that suggests otherwise, I'd appreciate your letting me know where so that I can clarify my statements. I certainly don't want to be on the side of those who think that the poor have chosen poverty, and thus deserve what they get.