When LD 913 was first introduced in the Maine Legislature, I supported it and opined about it here because it aimed to protect fans. The bill sought to guarantee something that seems obvious: that people who buy tickets should be able to use them, resell them or give them away without interference. But after behind-the-scenes maneuvering, that original intent of the legislation has been gutted — twisting the bill into something that benefits powerful monopolies like Live Nation-Ticketmaster, while hurting the very fans it was meant to support.

The latest version of LD 913 caps resale prices and allows teams, venues and ticketing companies to refuse entry to fans who buy their tickets on secondary markets, regardless of whether those tickets are valid. This shift not only undermines fair competition, but also opens the door for dangerous forms of retaliation.

Take, for example, the language in the bill that requires disclosure of seat or section numbers for resale listings. While presented as a way to fight speculative ticketing, it’s more likely to be used as a tracking tool — enabling teams and venues to identify who is reselling their tickets and potentially punish them for it. This isn’t just a theoretical concern. In recent years, season ticket holders for the Detroit Lions and Denver Broncos have seen their access revoked simply for reselling tickets they couldn’t use. It’s not hard to imagine the same thing happening to loyal Maine Mariners or Sea Dogs fans.

Fans should never fear being turned away at the gate because they bought a legitimate ticket from someone who couldn’t attend. Nor should they worry that listing an unused ticket for sale might get them blacklisted. And yet, that’s precisely what this bill incentivizes. Meanwhile, six other states have laws that protect ticketholders and their rights to freely use or transfer their purchased tickets. Maine shouldn’t take a step in the wrong direction.

Let’s be clear: this twist with the legislation is not about protecting consumers. It’s about control. Live Nation-Ticketmaster and the venues they partner with (and also independent venues) want to own the entire ticketing ecosystem — from the initial sale to every resale — and they’re using legislation like this to make it happen. By capping prices and discouraging resale, they drive more business through their own tightly controlled platforms, collecting fees at every step.

Just as an athlete can’t dictate how much a fan resells an autographed jersey for, ticket holders should be free to resell their seats at market prices without government interference. Laws imposing price caps on resale not only trample on consumer rights, they don’t even work. A CATO Institute study of NHL tickets found no price spike in states that repealed price ceilings, like Massachusetts did last year. Instead, these laws reduce ticket availability, funnel sales into shady, unregulated marketplaces and deprive fans of protections like guarantees against fraud.

Fans who invest in season tickets — often handed down through generations — should be allowed to recoup their costs by selling high-demand games, especially when primary sellers use dynamic pricing to constantly shift “face value.” Price caps punish loyal fans, create confusion and push honest buyers and sellers into a black market. It’s time to restore fairness and freedom to the ticket marketplace.

Data from states that protect open ticket resale suggest fans collectively save millions each year by shopping around and reselling tickets freely. In a state like Maine, where affordability matters, taking away that freedom is both short-sighted and unfair. Even if a draconian government price setting law like this one passes, it’s naive to think ticketholders will just oblige. Instead of using safe, transparent online ticket resale marketplaces, they will command whatever price they want using social media, or offer them for sale near the venue. Pushing ticketing back to the days of ticketing scams and fraud would be an unfortunate outcome of this bill.

The original version of LD 913 was on the right track. It respected the rights of ticket holders and acknowledged the realities of modern fan behavior. People buy tickets months in advance, and life happens — plans change. Being able to resell a ticket is not a luxury; it’s a practical necessity.

What’s happening now is a textbook case of special interests rewriting legislation in a backroom, leaving everyday people behind. Maine’s lawmakers should reject this bait-and-switch. They should stand with fans, not monopolies.