There are plenty of ways to measure a college football team's success, but the best place to gauge interest in the University of Tennessee Volunteers may be a couple of hours before kickoff at the corner of Phillip Fulmer Way and Cumberland Avenue.

On a Saturday afternoon three weeks ago, hundreds of fans on their way to the UT-South Carolina game streamed past the intersection, accompanied by the sounds of commerce:

"Who needs four on the 50?"

"Who needs good seats?"

The sing-song sales pitches, of course, were from ticket brokers, the intrepid speculators sometimes known - to their dismay - as scalpers. On this particular evening, though, it was the brokers who were trying to avoid losing their heads. "I don't know - I thought it'd be a good demand," said a visor-wearing broker who bore a vague resemblance to South Carolina head football coach Steve Spurrier. "There's not much demand, really."

While UT athletics is a big business in Knoxville, the commerce doesn't end when fans buy a season ticket. Instead, UT football - and, more recently, basketball - games are the focus of a vibrant, and perfectly legal, secondary market where brokers, much like Wall Street traders, scramble to make a buck on recycled tickets whether the team's fortunes are rising or falling.

Before last month's tilt with the Gamecocks, a trio of brokers was stationed at the corner of Cumberland Avenue and 11th Street. One of them, dressed in an orange shirt, blue jeans and a sign reading "I need tickets," said he sold six tickets with a face value of $50 each to a buyer from South Carolina for $200. Later, he said, that buyer sold them to another broker at the same corner for $100.

For a broker, the face value of a ticket often doesn't mean as much as the team's performance in the weeks leading up to a particular game. Dan Price, owner of Dan's Ticket Service, said most of the clients he buys from are elderly fans who have been getting tickets for years. On a recent morning, Price cited an Oak Ridge customer who had sold him tickets to the Georgia game for $100 apiece, saying he later sold them for $125.

Two weeks later, of course, the Volunteers got thumped by Alabama, and Price said he paid the same customer $150 for four tickets to the Arkansas game. So why were the Georgia tickets more valuable? The broker said that after getting whipped by Florida and Alabama, the Vols squandered a 21-point lead before beating South Carolina.

"And so we're playing sloppy football," he said. "It's just that simple. The interest's going downhill."

Lately, though, the guys on the corner have more to worry about than just buying low and selling high, because the Internet has radically changed the secondary ticket market. Nowadays, fans can buy and sell tickets from the comfort of their living room, whether it's at a general online auction site such as eBay or ticket-specific sites like RazorGator.com or StubHub.com.

San Francisco-based StubHub, which was acquired by eBay earlier this year, sold its 5 millionth ticket in November 2006, according to spokesman Sean Pate, but has already reached the 10 million market. "We will sell more tickets in 2007 than we've sold in our previous six years of existence combined," Pate said. "So that will be, more than likely, upwards of 6 million tickets."

All that growth is certainly reflected in Knoxville. StubHub data show that its sales of UT football tickets are already up 40 percent in dollar volume compared to last year, and up 65 percent based on number of tickets sold. In terms of dollar volume, the hottest ticket not surprisingly was for the Georgia game, which drew an average price of $192 a ticket.

Technically speaking, StubHub doesn't actually buy or sell tickets. Instead, the company's Web site serves as a marketplace to connect buyers and sellers, charging a transaction fee on both ends. Asked if the company's growth represents more people buying in the secondary market or whether StubHub was taking business away from brokers on the street, Pate said both.

"Unless you really want to haggle with somebody and play the bargain-hunting game, buying from the guy on the corner is really not that savory of an experience," he said.

Some universities and professional sports teams have signed partnership agreements with outfits like RazorGator and StubHub, but so far the University of Tennessee isn't one of them. Athletic Director Mike Hamilton said UT has probably heard four or five different proposals, but hasn't seen one that's palatable.

Hamilton said that when events aren't sold out, the university would prefer that fans buy their tickets from the athletic department, but added that an issue they've looked at for a while is "how do you help fans who already have tickets, who can't attend but they want to put people in their seats?"

New technology may provide one answer, at least when it comes to UT basketball games. For this year's roundball season, the university has implemented an "access management" system at Thompson-Boling Arena in which game tickets are printed with a bar code. The new system will allow fans to buy basketball tickets online and even print them out at home, although the latter option won't be implemented until later in the basketball season.

The system also has the capability to set up a "ticket marketplace," a secondary market controlled by the university in which a ticket wouldn't have to exchange hands. Instead, a buyer could print out their ticket at home, while the bar code on the seller's original ticket would be voided.

For transactions made in that system, the university could also prohibit ticket re-sales for a price above face value. Joe Arnone, assistant athletic director for ticket operations, said no decision has been made in that regard, but said his opinion is that "I just don't think we want to be affiliated with a secondary market where people are charging astronomical prices for particular games or events."

Business writer Josh Flory may be reached at 865-342-6994.

© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.