The Milwaukee Brewers, in the playoffs for the first time since 1982, may have found a way to make up for lost profit over those 26 years by reselling their own tickets on the secondary market.

Hundreds of the team’s playoff tickets were listed on StubHub this week, but according to broker Patrick Ryan of SecureSeats.com only a small percentage of those tickets appear to have been listed by fans or fellow brokers. As a Brewers season ticket holder, Ryan has tracked the team’s ticket sales for the past two seasons. But, as he told TicketNews, he never had a chance to purchase more playoff tickets than his number of seats, which is rare, leading him to believe that tickets may have been withheld.

“This was completely alarming,” Ryan said. “I checked around on other sites, and fans and brokers weren’t reselling tickets. It seemed like tickets were impossible to get, but thousands of them were still able to turn up on StubHub.”

He added, “I would have no problem with it if they openly came out and said they were doing it to help make up for lost revenue from unsold seats during the season or past years. But, it just doesn’t seem right if they’re not telling brokers and fans.”

Buy Sell and Go with confidence at StubHub

A representative of the Brewers, who said he was not authorized to comment, nevertheless denied that the team was reselling its own tickets.

Sean Pate, a spokesperson for StubHub, told TicketNews, “The team does not list tickets on StubHub to our knowledge. All listings come from individuals who have purchased tickets and are interested in reselling.”

The secondary ticketing giant became the official secondary ticket reseller for Major League Baseball last August. The “Postseason Ticket Information” page on each of the playoff teams official Web sites, with the exception of the Boston Red Sox, contain links for each game that go directly to StubHub.

Earlier today, the Brewers issued a release that a few select tickets were available to Saturday’s Game 3, but only if a fan purchased a 2009 season ticket package:

“Fans still have an opportunity to get tickets for Saturday’s Game 3 of the National League Division Series (NLDS) at Miller Park, but the deadline is fast approaching. A 2 p.m. CT cutoff TODAY has been set for fans to purchase 2009 Season Ticket Packages that include 2008 Postseason rights to purchase NLDS Game 3 (Home Game 1 at Miller Park).

At the time of this release, only 350 packages that include the rights to NLDS Game 3 (the first Brewers home game) remain.

Learn more about the Insomniac web browser, designed for ticket resale professionals

2009 Season Ticket Packages that include 2008 Postseason rights to purchase NLDS Game 4 (Home Game 2 at Miller Park) will still be available, but only until 5:00 pm on Saturday, October 4.

If necessary, further information related to 2009 Season Ticket Packages that include 2008 postseason rights will be released next week.”

As of 4 p.m. EST, there were more than 2,500 tickets to Game 4 of the team’s series with the Philadelphia Phillies available on StubHub’s Web site, compared to just 857 on TicketsNow (See screenshots below). TicketNetwork’s exchange only showed 805 at the time.

While the Brewers and their fans may never get to see a Game 4, as the Phillies lead the best of five division series two games to none, it still remains to be seen if the Brewers were among those reselling tickets for the potential game.

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StubHub ticket listing screenshot for Game 4 (total inventory highlighted):

TicketsNow ticket listing screenshot for Game 4 (total inventory highlighted):