So we haven’t talked in awhile. If anybody here had any problems finding Rutgers, Minnesota, or Maryland tickets as gametime neared let me know. I used the “gawd these teams suck” period of Michigan’s schedule to put together a Christmas HTTV (announcement later today), plan a tailgate (announcement later today) and try to get this app out onto Android (announcement…now).
APPDATE: EVERYBODY IN (FOR THE TEST RUN)
We got a lot of feedback for Tidget (www.tidgetapp.com) after the iTunes test. If you’re going be selling your OSU ticket and want to make sure it goes to an MGoBlogger, may I recommend the only ticket market that has nobody BUT MGoBloggers on it?
If you’re wondering what this is about, we made an app for on-site ticket trading so you can sell an extra ticket from your tailgate and buyers will find you on a map. It’s secure (works over Paypal for now) and since we’re just telling MGoBlog readers about it so far that’s the entire community. If you haven’t yet, take that link and sign up now and you’ll get to use the app for free when it actually launches, and have a chance to play around with it while we Beta it. We’ll try to do that a bit for Ohio State since fees for online ticket markets get HUGE when you’re talking the kind of get-in prices Ohio State demands.
Speaking of Ohio State demand:
THE LATEST TRADING
OHIO STATE
| Seats | Aug 31 | Sep 13 | Sep 27 | Oct 4 | Oct 18 | Now |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midfield | $500 | $500 (nc) | $545 (+45) | $545 (+45) | $458 (-83) | $418 (-40) |
| The 35 | $382 | $352 (-$30) | $436 (+85) | $436 (+85) | $359 (-101) | $306 (-53) |
| The 25 | $341 | $410 (+$69) | $384 (-26) | $384 (-26) | $366 (-18) | $272 (-94) |
| Goal line | $315 | $360 (+45) | $305 (-55) | $305 (-55) | $273 (-32) | $255 (-18) |
| Endzone | $245 | $296 (+$51) | $246 (+4) | $246 (+4) | $233 (-71) | $195 (-38) |
and for those going to Madison,
WISCONSIN:
| Seats | Sep 27 | Oct 4 | Oct 18 | Now | (^Deck) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midfield | $256 | $243 (-13) | $262 (+19) | $207 (-55) | $157 |
| The 35 | $240 | $274 (+34) | $226 (-48) | $182 (-44) | $156 |
| The 25 | $230 | $229 (-1) | $209 (-20) | $165 (-44) | $122 |
| Goal line | $183 | $173 (-10) | $172 (-1) | $127 (-45) | $116 |
| Endzone | $154 | $150 (-4) | $150 (-) | $122 (-28) | - |
Tickets for the Game started dropping as soon as they started selling, which really had nothing to do with the rote blowouts of bad teams so much as delayed reaction from getting blown out at Penn State.
Put your mind in the mode of the guy you want to buy from: he watches…that. Figures he’ll wait and see what happens with this Peters guy. It’s alright but Michigan is just running over bad teams. “Okay, should I go? Let’s see what they’re selling for. Eh, just $230, I paid that much to get these in the first place if you count the seat donation. How long has this can of Vernors been on my desk? Has Marla noticed it? I really need to get a new chair. Ooh, Twitter.”
This is Seth makes a rule out of nowhere of the week: there’s no reason for sellers to offload tickets they might want to use until they’re up against the sunset. So you don’t really know what the market is for a game until you get there. Most of the factors that could drive up a price have occurred way out: the team is good, the opponent is good, the opponent is a rival. Those that can drive down a price occur a few days before: weather, family things, cumulative apathy effect, let’s see how I feel that day, your buddy Jason cancels because he can’t get sick or the whole hospital will collapse, and then of course the highly common “Why was I reading Twitter instead of selling my seats when I decided to four weeks ago?”
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MARKET OUTLOOK
The cheapest are usually the Friday before the game, unless it’s a Football Armageddon situation where there’s enough “I’ll go if there are tickets available” people to make up for the “yeah, I really need to get those leaves picked up” people. State games are like that. The Game would be like that in competitive years.
We’re actually at a window for Ohio State right now: if you order mail tickets they’ll get to you in about a week, so 11/22. If you wait another day you could save maybe a little money, but also risk running into the Post Office day off for Thanksgiving, and then you’re into Black Friday when the USPO is in post-holiday/everybody bought shit today/and they’re sending Christmas cards! mode. The two seats together in the charts above are still around $200 but you can find a single right now for $160 and that’s basically what The Game price will be.
Unfortunately there are a ton of Buckeyes who fit in that “I’ll go if there are seats available” so I don’t think a Wisconsin loss will have as big of an effect on the ticket prices; it will mean a lot of Michigan fans replaced by Buckeyes.
A win at Wisconsin will jack them up by $50-$70 from where they are now, so either jump on those immediately or wait it out and buy on Thanksgiving or the day after. Also it will feel good. Also, not counting on it.
Last year I wound up getting into Ohio Stadium at $270. Tickets were $100 more than that at this point. For the 2015 game I said to buy at $200 and then I found a really good single seat (Section 2) for $180 at a tailgate.
By the way, as for weather considerations, currently the forecast says it’ll be a normal Game day—slate gray and chilly but not freezing or precipitous. The market won’t realize this, but if it does get crummy out, YOU SHOULD GO TO THE GAME. You know about J.T. Barrett’s weakness, and you know how good he can be when he’s not discomfited by nature’s intrusion. If you weren’t going to this game but tickets drop to the $135 range on Black Friday morning because of an ugly weather report, jump on that and go, dude.