Desperate basketball fans without tickets to tonight's highly-anticipated and sold-out Penn-Princeton game are still trying to get in any way they can, with some resorting to buying tickets off of scalpers.
While Penn officials said they had not heard of any scalping incidents, several students have, and no one denies that such a hot-ticket event provides a lucrative opportunity to unload tickets.
Tickets sold out two weeks ago for students, and even prior to that for those seeking general admittance, according to Penn Athletic Department officials. Student tickets go for $6, and range from $12 to $18 for the general public.
One marketplace of choice this year for both ticket buyers and sellers was upenn.forsale.edu, a newsgroup where Penn students can sell and buy virtually anything from new jeans to old mattresses.
As of yesterday, over 20 postings had been made to upenn.forsale, mostly by students pleading for tickets, but only a select few selling them.
Wharton sophomore Arnett Mumford, who regularly uses the site to purchase Penn athletic tickets, tried his luck for the event. Unsuccessful, however, he will be viewing the game couch-side this year.
After receiving a few exorbitant ticket offers -- including one for $40 -- he resigned himself to skipping this year's big game.
"People try to make a profit," since this is such a big game, Mumford said, noting tickets for other games "usually go for face value."
One Wharton student made several appearances online, offering to both sell and buy tickets, promising to "make the best offer -- hands down."
And an undergraduate who wanted to remain anonymous, admitted to receiving few satisfactory offers for his spare ticket, finally selling it to a friend for $1 under the regular price.
Scalping for this game "hasn't been that prevalent," according to Penn Athletics spokeswoman Carla Shultzberg, and because "there's no effect on ticket prices," the department has not felt a need to involve the Office of Student Conduct.
But Shultzberg does admit that "it does happen, and [that] usually Penn Police get involved."
OSC Director Michele Goldfarb said "Penn students are expected to comply with the law of student conduct, and all Pennsylvania laws," including the one that designates ticket scalping as illegal.
The University, Goldfarb added, is aware that "people probably scalp tickets across campus all the time, and we all have to use some discretion" in who the University disciplines.
Shultzberg said that it's unfortunate not all Penn students can go to the game. "I feel bad for those who are going to miss out, it's going to be a great game and it's a shame that not everyone can come."
Goldfarb also believes that tickets should be distributed fairly and "not to the highest bidder."
OSC has yet to have an athletic ticket scalping case reported, and as of now has "no precedent on which to rely" in terms of possible disciplinary action for the scalpers.
The only incident of this kind that OSC has dealt with recently was during last fall's Billy Joel lottery, where lottery winners were blatantly scalping their tickets to fellow Penn students and causing the Social Planning and Events Committee, who sponsored the event, to ask the OSC to intervene if necessary.
But even then, the OSC was not asked to take direct action, and the scalpers were "apparently stopped" after SPEC made a few reprimanding phone calls, according to Goldfarb.
Scalpers also come out in full force for the Penn Relays, the annual high-profile spring track meet held at Franklin Field. Penn Police usually handle those incidents.
"We haven't heard about [scalping] yet here," Deputy Chief of Investigations William Danks said about the basketball game, but noted that scalping is certainly a possibility for such an event.
