—by Andrew Brawley

Without exploring the fine details of today’s little dust-up over single game tickets being pre-sold to season ticket holders, I think we can discuss one way of returning power to the people:

Ignoring scalpers.

Don’t buy from them.

Don’t sell to them.

Don’t acknowledge them.

I’m not about to start a new Occupy movement over this. I don’t want to start pointing fingers over who’s to blame for these tickets practically evaporating within minutes of release. But I do think that we, as members of the Timbers Army, have a responsibility of ensuring that any tickets we have in our possession (whether you’re a season ticket holder or not) are re-sold to those who are genuinely enthusiastic  about going to a Timbers match, rather than those who are more interested in making a profit at the expense of others.

I understand there’s a marketplace out there for tickets. Despite ticket prices increasing for “premium” matches (home opener, Seattle, Galaxy, etc.), it looks like people are still willing to pay more for those seats. I can’t blame them. It’s a hot ticket in this town, and market demand justifies it.

However, in order to maintain a sense of balance within the community, we must do what we can to ensure the “beautiful game” remains accessible to all. If you look around the world, this game is played by both rich and poor. If we start raising prices on our own tickets, we’re only diluting the quality of experience that we care so much about in the North End.

If you need to sell your tickets, do so by selling to friends, or asking around on Twitter or Facebook. Avoid reseller sites like StubHub. Even CraigsList is becoming a no-no. Put some elbow grease into it, and your effort will be greatly appreciated.

We may make fun of the east stands during games, but if we don’t maintain some order, those in the east stands will soon be joining us in the north.

This is an opinion piece and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the 107ist or the TA.