‘Bruce Springsteen Does Not Care About You’: NJ.com Slams The Boss in Blistering Op-Ed Over $4,000 Tickets
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Bruce Springsteen is facing some harsh hometown criticism after ticket prices for his upcoming tour have skyrocketed to more than $4,000, with a blunt NJ.com op-ed declaring, “Bruce Springsteen does not care about you.”
The Boss’ U.S. and international tour kicks off in February, and Ticketmaster’s “Official Platinum” dynamic pricing system has surged prices for some of the most coveted seats to over $4,300 for floor seats, a price tag normally seen on ticket reseller sites like StubHub. According to NJ.com, floor seats for Springsteen’s last tour in 2016 went for only $164 — a far more accessible ticket for the fans who share Springsteen’s blue collar roots.
But these new luxury ticket prices were a betrayal of those fans, wrote NJ.com’s Bobby Olivier. After he wrote about the ticket prices, Olivier wrote, he got “dozens of emails from irate fans,” expressing the view that “Springsteen, the artist who has defined his career by singing about working-class and disenfranchised Americans, has forgotten his fans.”
The “resentment” was understandable, Olivier continued, because it was “exceedingly clear that Bruce Springsteen does not care how much a given fan spends to see him play.”
Ticketmaster’s monopoly on the U.S. concert market was largely to blame, along with promotional company LiveNation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2009, Olivier noted. But a “rock icon” with Springsteen’s personal wealth and influence could always choose to go independent.
But that would mean taking in less money for more work, and no one in the music industry seemed willing to battle Ticketmaster’s monopoly, with even the record labels being a part of the machine. So it continues, Olivier wrote, “turning a blind eye as fans are price-gouged over and over.”
Springsteen’s team likely could not predict how high Ticketmaster’s “market-based pricing system” would drive his tickets, Olivier argued, but that did not mean he should be “let off the hook.”
“At the very least,” Olivier wrote, Springsteen “should release a statement explaining his involvement and apologize to his droves of lifelong fans who feel as though they’ve been priced out for good and will never be able to see him perform again. Any and all backlash is deserved; it’s his name on the stub.”
Anchor Pamela Brown noted the controversy on CNN Newsroom Sunday, noting that Springsteen fans had cheered his return to touring, but were outraged by the ticket prices, mentioning Olivier’s “stinging op-ed.”
Brown showed a tweet from one fan in Wisconsin who calculated it was cheaper to fly to Munich, Germany and buy a ticket for a Springsteen show there than to attend one at home in Milwaukee, even including the price of the flight. “Do the math,” the fan tweeted. “How is that possible? Ticketmaster.”
#Springsteen #Ticketmaster FYI… bought 4 floor tickets to Springsteen in Munich (yup, Germany) for $95 for each ticket. Plus the airline ticket was about $300 one way (cheaper than flying from Milwaukee to LA). Do the math. How is that possible? No Ticketmaster.
— Terry Kaldhusdal (@kaldhust) July 21, 2022
Watch the video above, via CNN.
