Stubhub ticket seller drew attention of Sox, FBI
Fired-up White Sox fans sent each other “Happy Michael Kopech Day” greetings back in August 2018 when the top Sox pitching prospect made his Major League Baseball debut.
That day’s game against the Minnesota Twins had drawn little interest until the announcement that Kopech would take the mound. Then things changed. And within hours, the feds say, one particularly prolific broker had tickets for sale on Stubhub.
Now “The Michael Kopech Debut Game” is highlighted in a December 2018 affidavit from an FBI special agent looking into the man’s sales. The agent said the broker managed to generate $900,000 selling 35,000 White Sox tickets over more than two years on Stubhub — and he might have had inside help putting his hands on complimentary ticket vouchers.
The affidavit became publicly available Thursday. The Chicago Sun-Times is not naming the broker because records show he has not been charged with a crime in connection with the investigation. The feds say he was previously charged in state court with illegal ticket sales in 2007 and 2008, but the charges were dismissed.
A White Sox official declined to comment on what she characterized as an “ongoing” investigation. The FBI and U.S. attorney’s office also declined to comment, and the broker could not be reached. The affidavit was filed in support of an application to search the broker’s Facebook and email accounts.
A White Sox senior vice president approached the FBI in October 2018 to report the broker, according to the affidavit. The South Siders’ data analytics team had flagged him as a Stubhub seller who had “sold more White Sox tickets than anyone else by a substantial margin.”
The broker had sold more than 35,000 White Sox tickets and generated roughly $900,000 in revenue on Stubhub between March 7, 2016, and Sept. 26, 2018, according to the affidavit. Because the face value of the tickets was roughly $1 million, it was suspected that the broker sold the tickets at a discount.
Further, the team determined that more than 96% of the broker’s ticket sales involved complimentary vouchers, which go to friends and family of the players, youth groups, commercial sponsors and others — and are not meant for sale.
The FBI agent wrote that, “it is reasonably believed that there is no legitimate means for anyone to obtain the high volume of complimentary tickets” the broker sold on Stubhub. The broker’s volume also “was higher than any other Stubhub ticket seller by a substantial margin.”
For example, the broker in question sold 11,000 complimentary White Sox tickets during the 2018 baseball season, according to the affidavit. It said the next most successful three brokers on Stubhub sold just 129, 113 and 108, respectively.
The White Sox also reported the broker’s sales amounted to roughly 92% of all Chicago White Sox complimentary tickets sold on Stubhub.
Because of how quickly the broker managed to put tickets on Stubhub after they were printed, the White Sox analytics team “advised that it appears the White Sox employee or employees are working with” the broker by printing the tickets and sending him the barcode information, potentially by email.
The affidavit points to Kopech’s debut game on Aug. 21, 2018, as an example. The broker sold 500 tickets to that game, according to the affidavit. And a White Sox senior vice president allegedly believed such ticket sales “could not have happened without a White Sox employee providing inside assistance.”