I am going to accuse myself of opportunism from an instance when I was at Wrigley Field. My neighbor came to my house because he knows that I used to play baseball and that I am a baseball fan, so he offered me tickets for a Chicago Cubs game. The Cubs were playing the Houston Astros, and at this time, both teams were underperforming and both had records under .500. As a consequence, there were some open seats at Wrigley Field. My friend Tommy and I had tickets by the left field pole, but we were unsatisfied with these seats, and we wanted to sit closer to home plate.
My friend and I got up from our seats and first got food because we wouldn't want to lose a good pair of seats close to home plate. After we got our food, we walked towards home plate. When the security guard asked to see our tickets, I said "my father has the tickets and he is sitting right there" as I pointed to two open seats in the first row behind home plate. The security guard bought what I had said, and let us both walk to the two open seats. Thankfully, nobody came to these two open seats or else we would lose these extraordinary seats. However, since we walked past the security guard, we would be able to find two other open seats in the section behind home plate.
This is an instance of opportunism because I took selfish advantage of the circumstance at hand; the security guard was gullible enough to believe that my dad was sitting in the first row behind home plate when he really wasn't. The Chicago Cubs organization is who would be rendered as the organization who was taken advantage of and as a result lost the amount of money for the two front row seats behind home plate. These two seats are the most expensive seats in Wrigley Field because these seats give a fan the best view of the baseball game. In fact, they lost hundreds of dollars from our actions. I know other fans do the same thing at sporting events, so all organizations lose money from when fans get closer to the field or arena, but it is the fault of the security guards for allowing fans to walk past them when they are not looking or are taken advantage of.
I have "moved down" at various sporting events for a game that wasn't heavily attended. Let's see if such an activity passes the test of opportunism. (And whether your analysis in the last paragraph actually makes sense to an economist).
ReplyDeleteUndoubtedly, the people who move down are made by better off by doing so. Since they initiate the action, this is clearly self-interest at work.
What about whether there is harm to others. You might first ask: were the seats already sold but the holder of the tickets decided not to use the seats that day and/or the person with the tickets tried to sell them but couldn't find a buyer? (As I'm writing this I'm thinking of the Illini Football game this afternoon where I suspect that situation will be in play).
If so, the opportunity cost of the seats is pretty low, maybe close to zero. In this case it is hard to see that there is any harm.
So let's consider the next case where the seats were never sold by the Cubs to begin with. The issue then is if your moving down blocked some revenue that the Cubs might have seen.
This is where I simply didn't understand what you wrote in the first paragraph. What quality seats did your neighbor offer you. Were those the ones by the left field pole?
Since nobody else occupied the seats you moved into, the operative question is whether you would have bought those seats had you not gotten the gift from your neighbor. If so, the Cubs were indeed harmed by the act and that fits the definition of opportunism. If not, however, this seems like an act without a victim, at least to this economist.