In the round-robin of finger-pointing and assigning blame that accompanies black-market ticket sales, no one's to blame, and everyone else is at fault.
Politicians point to scalpers who make wads of cash turning over tickets to fans -- who shell out huge sums of money in their eagerness to watch their favorite players.
Fans bemoan big-name companies that fan the flames with their willingness to pay any price to attend prestigious sports events.
Ticket brokers speak of the vagaries of the market and spread blame to organizations such as the Augusta National Golf Club, which shrouds its Masters Tournament in a mystique of exclusivity that drives demand even higher.
``There's nothing wrong with two consenting individuals agreeing to buy and sell a ticket or any other commodity,'' said Mark ``Marvelous Marv'' Marvin, an Alabama ticket broker. ``If somebody has a Masters badge, if they decide not to sell that badge for $6,000, they've lost $6,000. Anybody who just goes out there and uses it has lost $6,000. That's their decision.''
Nobody ever said life -- or the market -- was fair.
But are unfair and wrong the same thing?
Gov. Zell Miller has twice vetoed legislation to legalize ticket scalping in Georgia, defending his vetoes by saying scalping isn't fair to the little guy, who can't possibly afford to pay the markup on a ticket that increases in value up to 60 times as it changes hands.
State lawmakers who oppose scalping say middlemen shouldn't make a profit that doesn't go back to the taxpayers when many sports events are taking place in arenas built with taxpayer money.
But those who resell tickets argue that ticket-scalping bans are Puritanical vestiges -- an attempt to prevent victimless crime, much like Prohibition laws that banned alcohol.
The sellers also say that prohibitions build a thriving black market for the product. The market may not be fair, they argue, but it isn't wrong, either.
``Poor guys don't drive Mercedes,'' said Mr. Marvin, who sees Masters admission badges and other sports tickets as luxury items. ``They don't fly to Paris. They don't own beachfront property. They don't live in houses like I got. This is not Russia. We're not handing out tickets.''
As golf widens its appeal among the general population, access to the sport's most prestigious tournament has become a matter of money.
Unless you are among those lucky enough to be on Augusta National's list of lifetime badge-holders, you can expect to pay a ticket broker $5,000 and up for this year's four-day Masters Tournament.
That's not the scalpers' fault, say ticket brokers. To them, it's supply-and-demand economics, plain and simple.
``It's a very up-and-coming sport,'' said Mark Matthews, president of the National Association of Ticket Brokers and owner of a Washington-based ticket outlet. ``All you have to do is go to any golf shop to order clubs and find out about their list of back orders to realize that it's growing. Higher demand, coupled with Augusta National's limited-entry policy, adds up to higher ticket prices.''
Bruce Barry, assistant professor of management at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and an expert on business morals, said it's questionable whether ticket scalping is ethical, especially in a state that outlaws the practice.
On the other hand, nobody can argue that making a profit on a sports event is a great tragedy to society -- like boosting the price on water or ice would be after a devastating hurricane or tornado, he pointed out.
Weighing all the factors, ``it's probably safe to say that the people who are not unethical are the people who buy the tickets,'' Mr. Barry said.
Georgia lawmakers seem to agree.
The state statute that bans ticket scalping punishes the seller -- Augusta National patrons who can make as much as 30 times the face value of their $100 badges by selling to brokers and the brokers who turn around and bump up the price again before passing the tickets to clients who pull out credit cards to meet the high prices.
Many individuals blame big corporations and buy-at-any-cost tactics for driving up the black-market price of Masters Tournament badges and practice-round tickets.
Augustan Larry Moss, 45 -- who has attended the Masters every year since he was 10, thanks to his grandmother's badge -- is among those blaming corporations for the booming scalping industry that's feeding off the event.
``I could never compete with the corporations that are driving up the prices,'' he said, before echoing a sentiment often expressed in Augusta these days: ``They ought to make more tickets available for the local population.''
Augusta National officials say they limit ticket sales to make the tournament less crowded and more enjoyable for those who attend.
They also say their policy of selling tickets to the same patrons every year is designed to reward people who supported the tournament in its early years.
Parties blame each other for scalping costs