Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro Files Class Action Lawsuit Against NCAA and Ticketmaster

NCAA and Ticketmaster Accused of Fleecing Fans through Illegal
Lottery
LOS ANGELES--(Business Wire)--
Ticketmaster (NASDAQ:IACI) and the National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA) were hit with a class-action lawsuit today by
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, claiming the two organizations violated
racketeering laws by forcing ticket purchasers to pay a non-refundable
fee to enter what the lawsuit claims is an illegal lottery for the
right to purchase tickets to high-profile sporting events including
college basketball tournament games.

"The NCAA and Ticketmaster have come up with a scheme that would
make a Vegas bookie blush," said Rob Carey, partner at Hagens Berman
Sobol Shapiro and the attorney representing the named plaintiff. "We
will show that this NCAA practice has illegally taken millions of
dollars out of consumers' pockets."

Ticketmaster, an operating division of InterActiveCorp, was named
in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Central District of
California, along with defendant NCAA. The defendants are located in
California and Indiana, two states in which lotteries are illegal
unless run by the state or licensed charities.

According to the lawsuit, the defendants have created two types of
lotteries, one for the preliminary rounds and one for the "Final
Four," the final three games of the extraordinarily popular college
basketball playoff held each spring.

Fans who want to purchase face-value tickets to preliminary-round
NCAA basketball games must participate in a lottery by sending in an
application requesting up to eight tickets, the suit says. Applicants
must pre-pay the full ticket price for all the games in that round,
along with a $10 "service fee" to take part in the lottery.

According to the suit, if the applicant wins the lottery, the NCAA
releases the tickets, but if the applicant is not selected, the NCAA
refunds only the ticket price while pocketing the fee.

The scheme is even more brazen for Final Four games and is a
practice the NCAA has engaged in for years, the complaint states.

According to Carey, Final Four fans are required to submit an
application to purchase tickets, but each application can include up
to 10 entries, each requiring a separate $6 entry fee--dubbed a
"handling fee" by the NCAA--along with full payment for all 20
tickets.

"The rub is that, if one of your entries is selected, your other
nine are null and void, but the other nine entry fees go right into
the pockets of the NCAA and Ticketmaster."

Carey also noted that the NCAA and Ticketmaster require applicants
to make what is, in effect, an interest-free loan to the NCAA for the
entire amount the tickets would cost. The defendants profit from the
interest earned by depositing the full ticket prices sent in by
lottery participants and holding the losers' money for months, well
beyond the date of the alleged lottery.

The complaint cites cases in which the NCAA and Ticketmaster held
fans' funds from losing lottery bids for about five months before
refunding the money. In one example, the NCAA stopped accepting
applications to an event on May 31, 2006, but reimbursements weren't
issued until October of 2006, according to the complaint.

"We plan to show that the defendants created a scheme that lines
their own pockets by forcing fans to engage in illegal gambling to try
to get game tickets," Carey added. "Gambling can be extremely
lucrative for the defendants when you have hundreds of thousands of
fans willing to give away $100 or more to win a chance to buy at most
two of only 5,000 tickets."

Carey added that it appears the NCAA and Ticketmaster have been
intentionally vague in disclosing how many tickets are available
through the lottery.

"We know that the number of tickets made available in past
lotteries has been a small fraction of the total number of seats,"
Carey said. "We intend to show that the NCAA and Ticketmaster have
created a gambling venture with terrible chances of winning--a scheme
perfect for generating millions in excess profits at the expense of
the fans."

According to the lawsuit, only 4,600 tickets were distributed
through the lottery system for the 2008 Final Four in San Antonio,
while the NCAA and Ticketmaster received an estimated 100,000 entries.

"The lottery creates virtually no downside to the NCAA or
Ticketmaster because they aren't losing anything; their worst case is
they have to sell game tickets for a profit," Carey added.

The lawsuit seeks to represent all fans who submitted an
application for tickets to an NCAA championship tournament--including
women's basketball and men's hockey--and paid a fee to enter a drawing
for the right to purchase one or more tickets from 1998 until the
present.

The lawsuit lists several charges against the NCAA and
Ticketmaster, including violations under the state and federal RICO
Acts based on gambling violations, unjust enrichment, and civil
conspiracy. Additional counts against the NCAA include violations of
the Indiana Consumer Protection Act and monies had and received.

Tempe, Arizona resident Tom George is the named plaintiff in the
case. George is an avid college basketball fan, and has participated
in the NCAA lottery for a number of years.

To sign up to join this class action, please visit
www.hbsslaw.com/NCAA. To contact HBSS regarding this case, please
e-mail info@hbsslaw.com or call 602-840-5900.

About Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro is based in Seattle with offices in
Chicago, Cambridge, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco. Since
1993, it has developed a nationally recognized practice in
class-action and complex litigation. Among recent successes, HBSS has
negotiated a $300 million settlement in the DRAM memory antitrust
litigation; a $340 million recovery on behalf of Enron employees; a
$150 million settlement involving charges of illegally inflated
charges for the drug Lupron; and served as co-counsel on the
Visa/MasterCard litigation which resulted in a $3 billion settlement,
the largest anti-trust settlement to date. HBSS served as counsel in a
$850 million Washington Public Power Supply settlement and represented
Washington and 12 other states against the tobacco industry that
resulted in the largest settlement in history. For a complete listing
of HBSS cases, visit www.hbsslaw.com.

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro
Rob Carey, 602-224-2626
Rob@hbsslaw.com
or
Firmani + Associates Inc.
Mark Firmani, 206-443-9357
Mark@firmani.com

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