The Phillies have not yet clinched the postseason, which is a formality at this point, but playoff tickets are on sale and already on the secondary market:

What’s sad is that this might not even be a story. “Season ticket holders cash in on the postseason.” We saw it happen with the Sixers and Knicks just a few months ago, difference being, the Sixers were a dead basketball team walking and Knicks fans were excited about their squad for the first time in a long time. They were able to travel the short distance and pay less to see their team in a road environment because getting a playoff ticket at Madison Square Garden is like buying a house in California. It’s expensive.

In this case, the Phillies are a World Series contender. You’d think the people with first crack at those tickets would hang on to them for dear life, or at least see what the actual schedule looks like before going to the resale market. A lot of STH will tell you that they recoup their investment with postseason sales, and/or use that money to pay for the following year’s tickets, but there’s just something gross about the optics of an NLCS ticket priced at $115 now listed for $748 on September 6th. And no, there’s no guarantee the Phillies even make it to the CS or World Series, rendering these tickets void, but it feels slimy just looking at it.

It reminds me a little bit of the playoff ticket complaint of two years ago, when “Emily from Doylestown” won the World Series lottery but the guy who watched the 2015 Phillies and stuck with the team during the dark days did not. How do we ensure that the stadium is full of diehards who paid their dues? We can’t. It’s impossible. And even if we did find 45,000 diehards, what’s to prevent them from cashing out and making $2,000 on their ticket?

It’s supply and demand. The customer will do what the customer wants to do. Whether or not that makes them a shitty fan is for everyone else to decide.