Fragadelphia issue indefinite ban to Ohio Meat Wagon for "scalping" Fragville tickets to "big CS team"
Last night Fragadelphia announced their decision to issue an indefinite ban to Ohio Meat Wagon, a smaller NA team that are Fragadelphia regulars, for allegedly reselling and scalping their tickets to Fragadelphia Fragville 2025 to another team. The action is unprecedented as it is the first time Fragadelphia have ever banned a team for scalping tickets and one of the first times Fragaedelphia has ever banned players from their events.
According to Fragadelphia's announcement, Ohio Meat Wagon were found to have attempted to re-sell their tickets to an undisclosed third-party, with Fragadelphia reiterating that their tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable.
While the X post by Fragadelphia was light on details, Dust2.us understands that the indefinite ban was applied due to Ohio Meat Wagon allegedly attempting to profit from selling their ticket, selling it to the third-party for a price in excess of the $450-$575 a normal team ticket to Fragville would cost.
Following the announcement of Ohio Meat Wagon's ban, Ohio Meat Wagon co-founder Bee reached out to Dust2.us to explain the situation from the Ohio Meat Wagon side and to protest what he described as "false bans" by Fragadelphia.
Bee told Dust2.us that the Ohio Meat Wagon (OMW for brevity from here on out) were among the first teams to buy a ticket to Fragville with OMW also purchasing a "non-refundable" hotel room at the same time. The team allegedly intended on attending Fragville before making ESEA Main Season 54 playoffs, with the team deciding to prioritize ESEA Main playoffs. According to Bee, it was at this time that a "big CS team" approached them asking if they would be interested in selling their registration to the event.
According to Bee, this is a key distinction as they never offered to sell their ticket, rather they offered to allow this team to register their five players as OMW for the event. For this, the "big CS team" paid OMW around $1400, which covered the ticket, the non-refundable hotel, and "travel expenses that we would've incurred on the trip."
Importantly, this means by Bee's own admission that OMW profited from selling their registration as the extra ~$500 they were given for "travel expenses" covered expenses that hadn't yet happened and wouldn't happen with OMW no longer attending Fragville. Bee also said that the "big CS team" offered to pay OMW 20% of any potential prizepool winnings as they would be using the OMW brand for the event.
Despite OMW profiting from giving away their slot at the event, Bee told Dust2.us that Fragadelphia are wrong to ban his team as they never sold their ticket and that by using a self-admitted "loophole" they allowed an entirely different team to register as OMW for the event.
Bee feels that FRAG are in the wrong for banning OMW as the rulebook doesn't explicitly ban selling registration rights, only selling the actual ticket. Fragadelphia seemingly found their arguments unconvincing and issued the indefinite ban.
With Fragadelphia events becoming increasingly important for top teams to attend for spots in the upcoming StarLadder Budapest Major, Fragadelphia likely felt the need to close the loophole and come down hard on OMW to send a clear message that their lucrative and much sought after tickets are not a profit vehicle for third parties.
Fragadelphia declined to comment to Dust2.us at the time of publication.
