After the passing of the "King of Pop" last week, rumors have been flying around about whether the public be allowed to say their own goodbye. At one point it was reported that tickets would be sold for a service inside a sporting arena with T-shirts even being peddled. Thankfully this proved to be untrue.

The free public memorial will take place at the Los Angeles Staples Center at 1PM ET with a live simulcast at the Nokia Theatre down the road. 8,750 fans were randomly drawn out of a lottery to attend the service. Fans without tickets have been asked to stay away.

Watch Michael Jackson Memorial Online here

Watching the service on TV will be easier than heading to the memorial anyhow, as it seems every network will showing it. I think it might be harder to find a TV channel not airing the memorial service.

ABC,CBS and NBC will air the event in it's entirety live. MSNBC, and Fox News will have anchors broadcasting live from the event. CNN has announced it will start covering the life of Michael Jackson at 6AM and will even have Larry King out in Los Angeles doing interviews.

MTV and VH1 will also cover the service and, furthermore, MTV will host special programming for August 1st, 2009. That is the day MTV turns 28 years old and they will rename their channel "Michael Jackson TV" for the day. They plan on showing specials on the singer's life as well as airing his best moments on the channel.

The music channel has even set up a pretty impressive section on their Website for "Michael Jackson Remembered." You can view celebrity interviews with him and about him, as well as in-depth documentaries and a collection of his music videos.


Along with the reverent tributes, some tasteless ones have materialized as well. People claiming to have tickets for the service are willing to sell them for the right amount of cash. A few ads on Ebay show pairs of tickets to the memorial service being auctioned off. One was listed as sold at $80,000 with Ebay. The auction site has been working to remove the listings but every time they pull down one, another two pop up.

Several other listings related to the King of Pop are filling up the auctions as well. One asks $250,000 for a Website name related to the event. Newspaper clippings and poster advertising the event are also being offered.

Love him or hate, even in the afterlife Michael Jackson can still put on a show.