If you’re the Sixers, you’re kind of stuck when it comes to ticketing for the second half of this season.

Due to rules limiting the amount of fans in the ~19,500 capacity Wells Fargo Center, the building can only be 15% full. And with those restrictions in place, somebody is going to be on the outside, looking in.

The team is doing what most professional sports franchises are doing, and that’s giving priority to season ticket holders. In a recent interview with Crossing Broad, President Chris Heck said this about the Spring strategy:

CB: It’s priority access for season ticket holders, correct?

Heck: Correct, we’re going to give them first shot. We’re going to be selling these tickets month to month, because we figure that after March, what are we going to learn? Everything changes so fast. We’re not going to bite off more than we can chew and we’re going to sell on an individual game basis.

CB: What were the conversations like? Obviously the arena can’t be full, and someone has to be cut out, so you’re trying to juggle that while doing it in a fair and equitable way. I’m just curious as to how you discussed that internally and came up with this plan.

Heck: We have such a robust season ticket base, and these are people that have been really loyal. It makes the most sense to offer them the purchase, because we’re not including it in any packaging. All of our packaging that we sold has been rolled over to next season, so we’re treating this (year) on a game-by-game basis. If they feel comfortable and want to purchase tickets to come to a game, awesome. Some may wait until next year and some may jump all over this. We’ll probably find out Friday what the indication is, but I expect the demand to be quite high.

Those folks can move tickets to the secondary markets, and Ryan Sharrow at The Philadelphia Business Journal noted that tix were going for astronomical prices at Ticket IQ. As of publication of this article, the cheapest pair of tickets for Sunday’s game was going for $412, in section 112. The median price looks to be about $500 a pair. Cheapest tickets for the Milwaukee game appear to be $300.

For comparison, Flyers tickets are going for $100 to $200 for tonight’s game, against the stinky Sabres. Tickets for Saturday’s game against the Capitals are priced closer to $250 and $300 because it’s a better game, and on a weekend.

I checked Stubhub and some other places and the prices are pretty high there as well. This is supply and demand, and right now we’ve got two good teams that are worth watching in person. It’s just unfortunate that some fans are going to get priced out by the nature of the pandemic and the rules that have hamstrung the local teams.