The NCAA, the defenders of all that is pure and clean about collegiate athletics has decided to get into the ticket-scalping business.
The NCAA has entered into a deal with Ticketmaster to create TicketExchange which competes with online resale sites such as StubHub, Craigslist, eBay and others. Sellers set their own prices on the Ticketmaster-run Web site. The NCAA and Ticketmaster take a 10% cut of the action. Tickets were selling for as much as five times the face value this week.
Now should you try to sell your tickets at the CWS for above face value within a half mile of Rosenblatt Stadium, the NCAA will take away your tickets and prosecute you.
Here is the quote from Dennis Poppe, the NCAA VP for football and baseball.
"There's a secondary market out there, and I have no qualms about that revenue going toward college athletics," said Poppe.
Substitute the word athlete for athletics and I bet the NCAA wouldn't feel the same.