Joe Paterno: Tickets for Memorial Service Sold on E-Bay at Astronomical Prices

According to Penn State students and philly.com, tickets to Thursday's public memorial service for Joe Paterno were being sold on eBay for astronomically high prices.

Tickets were open to the public online, for free, starting on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. and were completely gone by 10:07 a.m. In just seven minutes, 10,000 tickets were handed out to the Paterno faithful.

Unfortunately, not all of the people who received tickets plan on attending the memorial service.

Apparently some people had the nerve to make a profit off this free event, which is honoring a person who donated millions back to Penn State.

There were listings of tickets to the event for sale on eBay around mid-day Tuesday. One pair of tickets reportedly went for $500 and another for $400.

There were also reports that one bidder offered upwards of $90,000 for a pair of tickets, but this offer wasn't deemed to be that serious.

Penn State President, Rodney Erikson, voiced his anger about these people selling the tickets.

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"I can't tell you how reprehensible I find those kinds of actions. We have tried to do everything within our power to stop that, but there are certain legal limitations on what we are allowed to do."

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Erikson isn't the only Penn Stater that is upset about the situation. Alumni and current students have also lambasted the people selling the memorial tickets.

Sophomore Penn State student Keith McFarland is astounded that people are doing such a thing.

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"I couldn't believe that people were selling their tickets minutes after it sold out. They are profiting from a tragedy." 

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McFarland also said there was a hash-tag on Twitter created by Penn Staters to warn people about the ticket sales.

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"Everyone at Penn State knew about these people and it started a Twitter hash-tag of #eBaywatch as people in the Penn State community tried to bring attention to people selling their tickets and stop it. It worked as tickets from eBay and Craigslist have since been taken down."

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According to eBay spokeswoman Amanda Coffee, the site has a rule that prevents tickets from being sold to free events.

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"eBay's event ticket resale policy does not allow the sale of tickets to events in which all tickets are free to the public. In accordance with the policy, eBay will not allow the sale of tickets to Joe Paterno's memorial service."

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Tickets to the service were obtainable through Ticketmaster.com, and the site has prevented people from printing their tickets till closer to the date of the service. McFarland also thinks the site is doing this to prevent further unwarranted ticket sales.

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"When I went to print my tickets earlier it said 'printing is delayed' now it says 'the site is temporarily unavailable."

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The public memorial service for Paterno will be held on Thursday, Jan. 26 at 2 p.m in the Bryce Jordan Center on the campus of Penn State. The official title of the service is, "A Memorial for Joe."

No matter how you stand on the Penn State and Paterno situation, one thing can be sure that selling tickets to a free memorial service is just plain wrong.

Paterno gave a lifetime to Penn State, and now people are taking advantage of his popularity by illicitly selling tickets to his service.

If you were lucky enough to get tickets to the service but don't want to go, then just walk around the campus in Happy Valley, there are thousands who will gladly take your ticket.

Stop selling the tickets and don't bring any more drama to this already sad situation.

Let JoePa rest in peace. 

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