Boshamer Stadium is sold out, but Stub Hub isn’t.

For years, college athletic departments have had a dilemma over trying to sell out their stadiums and arenas, but often end up with too many people in the stands wearing the opponent’s colors.

The secondary ticket market of hawkers and scalpers has been around as long as the games have been played. Hawkers get their hands on tickets for face value or close to it and scalp them for way more than that to make a profit and continue running their operations.

UNC still tries to control the resale of tickets internally with an exchange program in which season ticket holders can turn in what they’re not using, and get something back of equal value, and the school then resells them for the original price.

But Stub Hub got so big and offered Carolina so much money for advertising, and maybe a commission on tickets they sell, it was time for UNC to start getting a piece of that secondary market. Stub Hub is an online service for people to sell and buy and doesn’t purchase tickets from Carolina.

So, it got my attention when Stub Hub had almost 200 tickets listed for the sold out NCAA super regional this weekend against Auburn. How did Stub Hub get those 200 tickets, which is about 10 percent of the tickets on sale to the public? I know some fans who would bring their families to the games for face value but can’t afford to pay any more.

The range of prices on Stub Hub are from $37 way out in left field and right field, all the way up to a thousand bucks between first base and third base. Will whoever put them on sale at Stub Hub get a grand per ticket? Probably not, but they will still get more than whatever they paid for them. And you can take the cost of college baseball tickets and multiply that by ten for what the good ones go for at the Dean Dome.

The commercial resale business has created entrepreneurs. Say a season ticket holder has the privilege of buying eight to the NCAA tourney, and they put four of them on Stub Hub or sell them to brokers and wind up breaking even or making a profit on what they bought. Is that good for them — or just too bad for the poor schnook who wants to see the Tar Heels play for a reasonable price?

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