A few months ago, Bruce Springsteen and his fans were in a tizz when the best seats for a slew of home town shows at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., showed up on ticket brokers’ sites before they were even available to the public. “Scandal!” cried the fans. “Say you’re sorry!” blogged The Boss.

But months later, after the hue and cry died down, the Newark Star-Ledger got to the bottom of just how tickets for the show were disbursed… and as it turned out, most of the asses in the Izod Center’s cushiest seats had been put there by the promoters, Springsteen’s record company, and Bruce and his band.

The best seats in the house that night were the 1,126 seats in the four sections closest to the stage, but only 108 of those tickets were ever for sale to the public, according to new ticket data obtained through the Open Public Records Act.

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