David Kanter | A double standard toward scalping

For all those diehard Phillies fans out there, this coming week should be special. For the first time in 15 years your Phils are back in the Fall Classic. But if you want to make it down to Citizens Bank Park to watch the Series in person, it's going to cost you - listings on the ticket resale Web site StubHub.com have standing room only going for over $500 a pop.

A few years back, the resale of these tickets would've been illegal under Pennsylvania state law. According to that policy, tickets could only be resold for a maximum of 25 percent above face value. Kenneth Shropshire, director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative, explained to me that protecting consumers was at the heart of this policy and even stricter antiscalping laws in other states. The argument was that antiscalping laws prevented price gouging and fraud in the resale market.

To me, however, it seems only too convenient that these laws lined up exactly with the interests of professional sports teams. Not wanting anyone else to make money off their tickets, teams were all too happy to take down as many scalpers as they could outside of their stadiums on game day.

But now, all of a sudden, antiscalping laws are being taken off the books.

Why? In the last few years, StubHub, Ticketmaster and a bevy of other companies have developed an efficient online resale model: sellers put their tickets up on the Web sites and the sites take a cut of the transaction price. Seeing a lucrative opportunity, the four major sports leagues have gotten into this market. Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA and the NHL now all have official contracts with online ticket resale agencies. For many online transactions - for many instances of online "scalping" - pro sports teams and leagues now take a cut.

Two summers back, Pennsylvania decided to remove the ticket resale price cap and only mandate that an Internet reseller have a "physical street address" in the state. For some reason the state doesn't seem to be all that worried about price gouging now that teams, leagues and nice, little online corporations stand to make a profit.

Basically, Pennsylvania's modification of its antiscalping law - and similar modifications in other states - tells us that preventing price gouging was never really the true interest of the state. If you take one look at StubHub's prices for Saturday's game at Citizens Bank Park, you'll realize that gouging is still rampant.

Now that the Phillies, Major League Baseball and every other powerful sports interest can profit from scalping through an efficient online model, the states have suddenly deemed scalping permissible. To me, this seems like a contradiction that merits a bit more scrutiny than it's receiving.

Shropshire doesn't agree with me that there is a complicit link here between government and the interest of teams. He does, however, believe that the best business model is the one that allows consumers to get the tickets they want as efficiently as possible.

I agree. If StubHub and other online resellers provide the most efficient model, so be it. The high prices don't bother me. Tickets should be sold for whatever prices the market can bear, because they aren't a necessity like food or health care.

But what these companies are doing is no different than what your average scalper always has done on the block outside of the stadium. They take tickets, sell them above face value and pocket the difference. And now teams and leagues get a little piece of that action as well.

I admit that scalping is a small issue that probably doesn't have too many weighty social consequences. But Pennsylvania's tacit compliance with the wishes of professional sports organizations when it comes to scalping epitomizes the legal relativism that is so rife in our society - either scalping never should've been illegal or it still should be.

It really shouldn't matter who's doing it.

David Kanter is a College sophomore from East Falmouth, Mass. His e-mail is kanter@dailypennsylvanian.com. David vs. Goliath appears on Wednesdays.

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