Printing of Sports Tickets Is High Stakes Game

John Le Carre’s spy thrillers have nothing on the highly secretive, competitive world of printing athletic event tickets.

The industry, which has sales ranging from $6 to $8 million a year, has draped itself in a shroud of mystery and security tight enough to make the CIA blush in comparison.

“This is a secretive business,” said a spokesman for Weldon, Williams and Lick, one of the nation’s top ticket manufacturing companies.

“The reason this secrecy exists is that you can’t buy enough fence or guns to keep people out. We have found that the fewer people that know about it (what the company is doing), the better.”

In fact, the spokesman asked that both his name and the company’s location be withheld. Thus is life in the world of manufacturing sports tickets.

Weldon, Williams and Lick is one of America’s big three in the ticket industry. The other are H.S. Crocker Co., of San Bruno, Calif., and Globe Ticket Co. However, there are also a number of smaller firms throughout the country that nibble away at the big three, sometimes with practices that are less than honorable.

“It’s very competitive out there,” said Jack VanSweden, head of ticket marketing for H.S. Crocker. “It seems like there are times when sound business principles wither away. Some competitors will do something at all costs to do business. I’m sure there are times when jobs are done below costs figures.”

The Weldon, Williams and Lick spokesman agreed.

“The industry is too competitive,” he said. “What’s happened is that it’s a case of too many people after too few dollars.”

The competition is even tougher for sports’ premier events--the Super Bowl World Series, baseball and basketball’s All-Star games.

“Everyone wants to have one of those events,” VanSweden said. “This is an ego business and you want one of the majors. It also helps your sales force. People like to know that one of the professional leagues has entrusted you with one of their showcase events.”

Crocker has had two of those glamour accounts for the last few years. The company began working with professional baseball 12 years ago on producing playoff and World Series tickets. Crocker has also printed the tickets for the last two professional baseball All-Star games.

However, landing such an account is just the beginning of many long hours of work.

The process and a company’s reputation begins and ends with security at the printing plants themselves. Most plants have double and triple security systems within them to make sure the ticket plates and microfilms do not fall into the wrong hands.

“We store our films and plates in a high-security area,” VanSweden said. “It is a top priority with us. It’s like printing money.”

In some cases it can be better. At last year’s Super Bowl, tickets with a face value of $60 were selling for nearly $900. Such high-priced tickets lure forgers and professional scalpers.

San Francisco-area police uncovered a large-scale ticket-forgery ring headquartered in Hawaii during last year’s game. However, before police cracked the ring it had unloaded a large number of forged tickets.

“You worry about something like that happening,” VanSweden said. “Even if you are not at fault, it can damage your reputation.”

The secrecy not only extends to the tickets themselves, it also is draped over names of clients and the amount of sales each company has.

Only Crocker would disclose even the vaguest amount of information. Of $120 million in sales last year, VanSweden said those in the athletic ticket business were “a small percentage.”