Saturday, December 3, 2011

Bethpage Gray (market)

A) At Bethpage Golf course, which is a public golf course, a shortage currently exists because there are not enough tee-times to meet the demand of golfers. Also, the allocation of tee-times has allowed a black (secondary) market to emerge. With roughly 70,000 golfers trying to play the course, and only 35,000 rounds per year, a secondary market was bound to emerge. While tee-times are free if given out by Bethpage, nygolfshuttle.com plays the system in order to create a business of supplying tee-times (albeit for upwards of $500) to golfers who value playing on Bethpage on a given day, at a given time. Bethpage has taken issue with a company making money off a public golf course by "scalping" tee-times. The golf course has tried to combat the problem through various measures, but NYgolfshuttle adapts to accordingly. The problem Bethpage officials have is they have to find a balance between keeping tee-times from scalpers without "encroaching on the real life schedules of everyday golfers." I found it interesting that NYgolfshuttle is expanding into other public golf courses - clearly this shows they believe this is a viable business model.

B)
1. What could Bethpage officials do differently to keep NYgolfshuttle from obtaining tee-times?
2. Do you believe what NYgolfshuttle is doing is unethical?
3. What could Bethpage do to increase the supply? Reduce the demand?

C) Bethpage's golf course has seen a secondary market (black market) emerge because supply cannot meet demand. Therefore, the market for tee-times at Bethpage is in a shortage.

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