It has come to this. [UPDATED at 5:22 pm]

THE GAME

The biggest Game in a decade is priced like the biggest game in a decade. And tickets have finally started to actually move after the same crappy high seats have been sitting online all season. The singles in the $260 range got snapped up before I made it home from the Indiana game and are now trading around $300, with the bulk available in the $340 range.

Let’s go over the factors:

Wins. A loss to Michigan State would have sent those tumbling, since Ohio State fans control what’s being put on the market. They’re also controlling whom they go to, and like MSU that fanbase puts greater than usual pressure on their people to not sell to outsiders. I think that’s keeping the market artificially high—the scarcity on online sites is not reflective of the number of tickets actually being exchanged, and where a battle of unbeatens might be treated as a once-in-a-generation event the prevailing sense among both fanbases is that 1-loss showdowns will be the norm.

Weekend Activities. Working against this game is Thanksgiving, which plays havoc with season ticket holders and students. The stadium will get filled, but holiday obligations mean more are exchanged. These games haven’t been as competitive since they moved to Thanksgiving Weekend but last year TicketIQ’s guys were telling me it’s not something to overlook. Ultimate effect is I think it puts a hard cap on how high tickets can get by providing too large of a market for weird things to happen.

Weather. With so much on the line I think the weather will be less of a factor, though a sudden shift to the bad will result in something like we saw on Saturday, where there were lots of fans walking the edge of the stadium with one ticket. The price won’t be $20, but if you’re flying single I would take the gamble that there’s one for $200, especially if you can successfully hide your Michigan fandom.

This far out it’s hard to predict:

The Friday chance of rainshowers is coming from that precipitation over the plains states [correction: the stuff behind it that’s just now approaching British Columbia]:

My meteorologist thinks the weather will mostly go northeast and get dumped on the east coast of Lake Michigan because they’re snow-whores out there. Columbus might get only some light rain on Friday night. I’d bet it’ll be a nice crisp mostly sunny Michigan-Ohio State kind of day, but if it’s still raining in Illinois on Friday that could change.

Final take? I’m guessing on Friday there will be some tickets together for about $40-$50 less than what’s on there now, and $100 will get you a ticket if you catch someone 20 minutes before kickoff and lowball ‘em.

This is also a good game to try other ticket exchanges like local Ohio Craigslist (do tickets by owner) or Buckeye friends who belong to their alumni club or something. Like I said, a lot of the market is hiding from the online market, and with more tickets moving because of the holiday there’s going to be greater chances to explore the extremes of the bell curve.

[After THE JUMP, data on Ohio Stadium for when you’re looking at ticket options, Michigan’s bowl destinations, and how Penn State fans can get their B1G Title tickets]

Guide to the Horsehow Redux

Copy-pasting this from last week: This will come in handy if you’re trying to scalp or buy off someone on Craigslist or something:

• Any Section 1 is the middle of the North endzone and section 38 is the South endzone. Section 20 is 50 yard line.
• “A” means lower deck and “AA” means the first few rows. “B” is the middle deck, and “C” is upper deck
• Even sections are on the East side, odd sections are on the West side.
• Seat numbers go up. The upper and lower decks get up to Row 41-ish. The veranda gets to 18. If you get a letter it’s a specialty (wheelchair, etc.) unless you’re in the AA section, which is numbered A-F.

IF:THEN

So I’ve been gathering data on Indianapolis. I’m not some weirdo who believes in jinxes or anything…I’m not…really…but you know just in case this section is for Penn State fans:

I pinged Ralph and he sent this to me about 38 minutes after I posted:

“If the past 5 years are an indication, Big Ten tickets drop steadily each day with a slight bump on Game Day. Conf championship/Bowl games rarely sell before the teams are determined and ss of this writing there's still nearly 19,000 tickets on the resale market. With it only being about a 4.5 hour drive from Ann Arbor there's not much need to make travel arrangements far in advance, so it looks like those trends will continue onto this year. Mid-week of the game is a fan's safest bet for best deals.”

So let’s say you’re an Penn State fan and you just watched Ohio State beat Michigan and you’re interested in going to the Big Ten Championship Game to see if your just-signed-to-a-Ferentzian-contract coach can dominate Wisconsin like he did the Big Ten East.

The official tickets are sold out:

…and if you’re a season ticket holder you already missed the opportunity to get them directly from the (second-best) Pennsylvania state university. Here’s what it says on the Michigan site, which I’m sure it’s the same for your Nits:

The secondary ticket market at the moment is going at face plus about $10 in fees.

(I bought a pair of those $77s right after this screenshot. For my PSU friend of course)

Paying for a Reservation: Worth It? The other route is that ShooWin thing (works for the bowl game too) where you can pay the $10 markup now to reserve the right to buy a ticket face if your team goes. One of the regular board commenters was one of the people who started that and hooked me up with someone who could answer my questions. They also work as a secondary ticket broker once those seats sell out.

Since the $10 fee doesn’t budge, my sense is that is a good deal if you want to make sure you get good seats, since face on 50 yard line lower bowl only get up to $190 and likely to sell for that or more on the secondary market once the people who don’t care that much about money decide they’re going.

The Call: If you want to make it into the building, I’d recommend having the TicketIQ app open and once J.T. Barrett passes for his 8th touchdown to Curtis Samuel to put the game out of reach, start watching the Wolverine fans dumping theirs faster than Jim Harbaugh can run to the Raiders. The market is going to be a flurry, so pick your price-point and refresh until you have it. I think face value is worth it, but there will be under face tickets available all the way to the end.

And Bowls?

My advice for bowl games in general is you can always find cheap tickets around the stadium that day, since it’s so hard to trade them beforehand and nobody planned this trip until a few weeks ago at best.

Playoff games I don’t know. They’re high face so that creates a slow-moving market where those who bought and can’t go can’t offload them and won’t drop below it. From an FSU fan who went through it, he bought through his alumni association and then found tickets for way less all around town.

You can also just figure you’re going and book a bowl tour. Your Alumni Association of the University of Michigan puts on a good one every year, with a bowl tailgate and accommodations at the team hotel. If you don’t do AAUM’s you can try www.MichiganBowlTour.com, a startup who’s also going to do some advertising with us.

BEST DEAL ON THE SPONSOR’S SITE RIGHT NOW

Well dang I got some B1G Championship tickets for $77 a half hour ago when there were still 8 more for sale and now they’re already gone. However these just went on sale:

Two together for $300 apiece, Row 13 of the corner section. Man, that ain’t bad.