On Tuesday, the four men responsible for the former ticket resale outlet, Wiseguys Ticketing, were indicted. For three years, these hackers purchased large amounts of premium seats at events, such as the 2006 Rose Bowl and the 2007 MLB playoffs. Wiseguys then sold their inventory to online ticket brokers at an increased price. The ticket brokers then sold the tickets on websites such as StubHub and TicketsNow.

By taking away the fans’ opportunity to purchase those seats directly from Ticketmaster or mlb.com, fans were instead forced to look to those ticket resale outlets to buy what they needed at a significant markup in addition to the increased price paid by those brokers.

So the fans got screwed — twice.

However, removing the Wiseguys from the online ticket purchasing game is only one hurdle facing sports fans in the technological age.

In a recent article in the Sports Business Journal, the president of StubHub, Inc. raised some issues of accelerating concern for sports fans in this new world of paperless ticketing. “People often talk about the virtues of paperless ticketing, and there are some, but there are also two main negatives: It takes away fan rights and eliminates resale competition,” Chris Tsakalakis said. “And with no competition, you usually get a lower level of service and higher prices.”

One of the advantages of paperless ticketing is the fan access to the tickets. Secondary ticket markets can not resell paperless tickets, eliminating ticket broker interest. But when plans change or a fan wants a last minute ticket, paperless tickets keep fans from re-selling tickets they can no longer use. Paperless requires a picture ID and the purchasing credit card to be shown at the gate to the event, prohibiting ticket transfer.

Penn State University went paperless for 2009 football season tickets in the student section. Ticketmaster made reselling possible through their own website, but the fine print showed that it only worked if both parties had valid Penn State student id numbers. There are also limits on how many games can be resold and at what price.

Paperless ticketing is a great way to eliminate scalpers. But at what cost to the fan?