Well, I guess this comes with being a big league city

Ticket scalpers suck. Like big time. Like Tavaris Jackson at football. Like Michael Moore at life. Like me at making crappy analogies.

And now, they've hit OKC.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290262815283&category=16122

It's not like this is something new. Oklahomans have dealt with ticket scalping with OU and OSU - well, OU football. But now it's big league scalping for a big league city. Two seats in the upper deck, row G at $2,499.00?!? That's $1,679.00 over face value. That's beyond disgusting. A regular $10 upper "Loud City" deck seat is turned into a $30 ticket.

Scalpers are the lowest of the low. The scum of the sports world - well, maybe even the scum of the world. These greedy little money lovers come in, scoop up the ticket with no intention of using it and then rape us true fans by hiking the price.

I've had this debate with numerous friends. And I've actually convinced a few how wrong it is. At OU, we have this game we play in Dallas every year against a team from Texas. Students run and buy up tickets but in my estimation, only about 40 percent actually go to the game. The remaining 60 percent snatch up a ticket, charge it to their parents bursar account, toss the ticket up on Ebay and reap some major reward to go buy more beer and doritos. While some super Sooner that can just afford the $95 face value price misses out because he had to work all day and couldn't get to the box office. Now the ticket is 500 yammers and the true Sooner is hung out to dry.

Let me put it this way. Metallica released a new CD last week. You're a HUGE Metallica fan. You've been looking forward to Death Magnetic for months. (Go get it, it's good.) When the disc dropped last week, you had to work. But after you got off you were running straight to Best Buy to pick up your brand new copy. You've been thinking about it all day. The clock strikes five and you hit up BB. You run in and don't see it anywhere. You turn around and there's a guy behind you with 50 copies in his cart. You're a little stunned. The guy is wearing a Fall Out Boy shirt and eyeliner. He clearly wants nothing to do with Metallica.

He says to you, "Hey you want one of my copies?"

You say, "Yeah! Thanks!"

He grabs one, holds it out and says, "I like you. Just make it an even 75."

"What? But it's only $9.99. You don't even want the thing!"

"I don't care. I got here first. Now make it 80."

See how ridiculous that sounds? Best Buy and the record company determine the price of the CD, not some dude that just got there before you did. We yell and complain about gas gouging, but we let ticket scalping go. Some morons just claim, "Hey, that's capitalism." Well no, capitalism is having a market that determines the set price of the ticket in the first place. The market determines the price not some jerk trying to make a buck. Wal-Mart and Target compete for consumers so they set prices based on each other. The Thunder set its prices based on the rest of the league. Scalpers aren't competing with anyone. They just want to stuff their pockets.

So my plead is, don't buy scalped tickets. JUST DON'T DO IT. And for the love of Mohamed Sene, don't scalp a ticket. If you buy one and can't go/realize this team is going to totally blow, sell it - for what you bought it for.

Or I will find you. And when I do... I'll probably just write some column about you being a huge tool.