What on earth does prices SCALPERS (ticket resalers) have to do with the amount an event brings in. Also, you do realize that the city/county gets money from the amusement tax that is only a small fraction of the original selling price.
Number of tickets sold is meaningless, the total value of all tickets sold is the only amount that is meaningful.
Go check out the Marriott near the arena the afternoon before a lot of Pens games and also Pirates games. You will see a lot of people that are guest of the hotel wearing opposing teams jerseys. This is incredibly noticeable when teams from NY, NJ, OH, and Canada come to play.
As of last fall, the Steelers only paid roughly $5 million/year (around $40 million) since 2000 in local taxes to the city/county due to Pittsburgh’s 5 percent amusement tax, 5 percent payroll tax, 1 mill business privilege tax, 1 percent wage tax, 3 percent facility usage fee and $52 local services tax, which is borne by employees.