Tennessee Titans Had a Secret Deal with a Scalper to Keep Their Sellout Streak Alive

The Tennessee Titans have a 16-year streak of games that have been sold out, dating back to when Jeff Fisher was a young coaching phenom and Frank Wychek was breaking Buffalo hearts. According to a News Channel 5 investigation, that streak is due in part to a secret agreement with a ticket broker/scalper named Cole Rubin, of Boca Raton, Florida.

"The ticket deal was hammered out by former Titans ticket executives Marty Collins and Tim Zenner, with the blessing then executive vice president Don MacLachlan. MacLachlan told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that the ticket office strategy was to make Rubin “the main guy” for scalping the Titans’ tickets. The goal was to eliminate other brokers who “cheapen the market.” The ticket office staff was “trying to up the value” of Titans tickets, MacLachlan said."

In exchange, Rubin agreed to buy up any unsold tickets for less desirable games. He then, as the story notes, was able to capitalize on opportunities to buy tickets for games like the Cowboys’ visit to Nashville last year, where he could sell the tickets at a premium, and roll the profits back into paying for the unsold tickets to other games.

A team working with a ticket broker on the secondary market is not unique. The kickbacks and secret deal to insure sellouts, though, might be. Then again, the story notes that Rubin has a relationship with 22 different NFL teams.

Another troubling aspect–coming just a short time after the stories about teams getting paid to honor the military–is that preseason tickets actually given to Rubin were credited in the internal books as donations to the military. These irregularities were discovered during an internal audit following the 2014 season.