Based on weather forecasts, decided to switch plans at the last minute to go from Maryland to New York instead of Arkansas or Dayton. I got up really early to drive from the hotel in Albany up to Point au Roche State Park (near Plattsburgh) in upper NY. This would have been a lovely way to relax and spend the morning waiting, but I got concerned about the weather forecasts showing increasing chances of clouds and decided to drive another 2.25 hours to Newport, Vermont which had a better forecast. Luckily this was backroads and did not get crowded until I arrived in the city hosting the event. There was a really nice beach on a lake at the public event site. It was fun to meet various people who had traveled there.
In 2017 I observed the total eclipse completely blocked by clouds at my site, so I had at least some idea of what to expect for it getting dark. The moment taking my glasses off after totality was a much more dramatic event than I could had ever expected, and was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It was a long drive back and after midnight before I got to the hotel, and I probably could have just stayed at my original site, but I didn’t want to take any chances on missing out. I hope I get a chance to see another one some day.
Driving from Maryland to Northern NY after deciding forecast looked more stable than previous plans for staying in Arkansas or Dayton. I willhave to get up super early to drive several hours Monday morning now since that was the best I could do at the last minute for hotels. Hoping this works out because my trip to SC in 2017 resulted in seeing just clouds at totality, though I was only 10 to 15 miles from a colleague who had a great view (and it only took about 15 minutes to drive out from under the clouds afterwards). Some spots in Ohio and Indiana look like they may be OK, so good luck to everyone trying to view this rare event. Definitely try to get to totality if you can.
I will put in another vote for Youtube TV. It is nice that you can easily cancel during the offseason. I will cancel soon since the basketball team won't be playing much longer, and I am not sure about paying for extra months just for the Michigan hockey team this season.
The unlimited DVR is nice. The only downsides are that I can't watch overseas, and the restriction of local stations causes issues sometimes. Even though I live between two viewing areas (DC, Baltimore) for which cable included both stations, when I go to Dulles airport, I can't start watching from the beginning of a live football game on local channels until the game is over. This latter issue seems unnecessary and is annoying since Michigan football was the main reason I subscribed.
Was busy doing other things, and tuned in late hoping Peacock would let me select an option to start from the beginning. It went directly to live action. I saw the score was 69-41, saving me from wasting time watching this. (I did rewind to watch the first 5 minutes or so of the game.) I need to decide whether it is worth keeping the $1.99 per month Black Friday deal for Peacock to wait for football season or to just bail on it.
I placed a large order on January 10, which finally shipped on January 30 and arrived on February 2. By that time, I already had received another somewhat large order from Dick's during their 30% off sale. I probably purchased a few more items than I should have, but it is a nice way to remember attending the championship game. I noticed that Dick's now has lots of items at 50% off, but I probably have enough for now. (I placed another small order yesterday for a few items at Mden that were not going to ship until the end of February.) I am still waiting for the Michigan Daily poster. My excuse to my wife is that it may be another 26 years before this chance comes around again.
We also enjoyed watching it. It got better when the announcers decided they didn’t need to talk over what was happening as if it were the Rose Bowl parade. I also wonder what we missed during the commercial break. However, I am glad the Big Ten network made an effort to show this even though they already had another sporting event scheduled. As others have mentioned, it was very amusing that OSU had to see their hockey game preempted by this reminder of our football dominance.
Southwest flight back yesterday afternoon from Houston Hobby to Baltimore was delayed about an hour due to late arrival/boarding then another 2 hours waiting for clearance to fly due to air traffic control restrictions. The pilot claimed that all the traffic from corporate jets at nearby airports were also having to wait their turn the same as us. I was just happy to get home with no other problems after a fantastic win by Team 144.
I think I saw something on the college football playoff website about purchasing physical souvenir tickets. I think the resale tickets will all be digital. About 10 years ago, Stubhub would have a location to go pick up physical tickets for events like the Big Ten basketball tournament, but those days are long gone.
This has some similarities to my experience. I attended the Jan 1, 1998 Rose Bowl as a student, so I didn’t try to attend since travel costs would be a lot more than to get to Houston if we made it. Flights were a lot more around New Year’s than a week later. I had never been to Houston either, so that had an added draw of being able to add on some tourist things as well. The space center was fun today (but didn’t try alumni event there), and I look forward to the Pep rally tomorrow.
A coworker who was a Notre Dame alum had reserved a tour to attend the championship game if they made it some years back with the explanation that she wasn’t sure when they might be in that position again. That didn’t work out for her, but it did start me thinking about trying to attend in person if we got that chance.
I am superstitious enough that I will wear the Team 144 shirt that I snagged at the Tshirt toss during the season opener, and which I have worn during every subsequent game so far this season (including sleeping in it during a night game while I was traveling in Europe.). This is probably more for me to say I wore it during all the games than really thinking it will affect the outcome, but I did make sure to pack it.
I did this several months ago with Southwest, which is nice because even the lowest fares give you a voucher with no time limits if you cancel. When I checked several weeks ago to consider changing who might fly down with me, prices had doubled. I am glad that I scheduled some time for sightseeing ahead of the game so that I will hopefully beat out an upcoming storm on the east coast.
Doing the CFP RSVP the morning before the Big 10 championship game worked out well for me, though it was certainly a risk. The seats aren’t great and prices may get cheaper as we get closer to the game, but it is nice not to have to try to decide on getting tickets now. I am also very glad we won so that I won’t get blamed for throwing away money on the RSVP option and getting nothing in return.
I was a little worried when I saw this post, but it doesn’t look like the impact will be as bad as it could have been. My section 4 seats are likely in the blue middle tier section, but the difference in tier levels seems mostly insignificant. I got worried a bit about Michigan trying to match prices of other schools because Nebraska fans sitting near our seats told us they would have to donate over $1000 each to get those seats. (A quick Google search verified this.)
Last year, the cutoff for getting tickets to the championship game was around 160 points, which was lower than I expected based on cutoffs for the Big Ten championship and Fiesta Bowl. This could be a combination of a larger number of tickets set aside, being further away, and a potentially more expensive ticket. I am a bit under this unless I make some additional donations, but not that far off. I would guess there will be more requests this year since we seem to have a better chance of winning this year and don’t have an injury to our best running back.
I think the proper way to compare costs is that if you think Michigan has a 50 percent chance of winning the Rose Bowl, then the difference between paying $1150 for a ticket on the open market and risking $700 for the right to purchase that ticket at that price is that you have a 50 percent chance of losing $700. This would make your expected cost for comparison purposes to be $1150 + (700 / 2) = $1500. The calculation should vary a bit depending on whatever the true odds for Michigan winning the first game since Michigan is favored, but probably not that much.
Whether this is appealing depends on your risk tolerance and desire to gamble. I was able to get this Friday morning before the Big Ten championship game at a much lower price point (but still debated because the price had gone up $60 from what it had been the previous days). I am glad I did this, but I would be more hesitant at the current prices.
That has been true the last 2 years that they did not have a pep rally, but they did have the band and cheerleaders performing in the Fanfest at the convention center. The Big Ten website says that the East division band will perform at 5:15 pm. This was fun to attend, but it does not leave a lot of time if you want to stop somewhere else to eat before the game. Even fast food restaurants were pretty crowded.
While attending the game, I layered lots of good luck T-shirts to stay warm. I wore the Team 144 shirt I was lucky to grab in the Tshirt toss at the season opener, which I have had on during every subsequent game this season. I also wore a Victors 42-27 T-shirt and Driving in Ohio T-shirt in honor of our last two wins over OSU, as well as a Woodson jersey for good measure to harken back to my student days and our last national championship.
I switched to Seatgeek since that will let the buyers get the tickets without having to depend on me transferring them. I was worried that they may not get as many views as Stubhub and that it would be harder to sell there, but I haven't had any problems selling my extra tickets there. (I am sure that how well the team is doing helps.) The only annoying thing is that they adjust the listed price the buyers see, so it takes a little trial and error to determine how the price will compare to others in your section. I was surprised that their recommended price for the Purdue game that I listed a month ahead of time sold within a day, because I thought all of the ticket prices were crazy high given the expected level of the opponent. (This was around the level of the MSU game the year before. I think Parent's weekend helped with that sale.)
One clarification is that parking at the College Park metro lot is $15 during football games if you do not ride the metro into the city. You can park at any other station for free. Greenbelt is convenient nearby place to park and ride one stop.
Agree that the Metro is an easy way to get there, even if parking and only taking it one stop from Greenbelt.
I attended the games against Virginia and PSU this year (using season tickets purchased mainly for this game against Michigan). The upper sections on the visiting side of the field will be overwhelmingly Michigan fans because they don't sell very many season tickets up there, and it was very empty for the Friday night game against Virginia. I thought the student section was the only lower area that seemed full at the start of those games, but it will become empty if Maryland falls too far behind.
I will be there along with some fellow alums from work. I missed the deadline for getting away game tickets from Michigan by forgetting to respond until the last day and not remembering the deadline was 5 PM rather than midnight. Since I knew this could be win #1000 if all went well, we ended up getting some cheap season tickets ($99) before they went on sale individually, really just for this game. Went to a couple of other games with the first-time experience of rooting for Maryland at their stadium since they weren't playing Michigan (my kids do go to Maryland), and donated the rest. Looking forward to hopefully seeing Win #1000, and will be very mad at the NCAA if they mess up Win #1000 in the future by making us vacate games over this stupid scandal.
I agree that Toledo is a great option coming from the South. The prices are very reasonable compared to game weekends in or around Ann Arbor, so that is my default location to stay. It takes around an hour to get to campus if you arrive ahead of the heaviest traffic. If you are able to walk for parking, I have found parking in residential areas a bit southwest of Main Street / downtown and then heading west to 94 enabled me to get out after night games more quickly than I would have anticipated.
I am also a hiker and have definitely enjoyed trying to visit and hike in as many National Parks as possible more than I would trying to highpoint. I am currently at 38 out of 63 and will soon be at 40. I will have to determine whether it is worth the effort to get to some of the less accessible parks in Alaska or American Samoa.
Of the handful of high points I have happened to hike, hiking up Mt. Washington and Katahdin on consecutive days a couple years ago was a lot of fun, though definitely tiring by the time I got to the second hike.
Last season was my first with YouTube TV instead of Fios TV. A big advantage was being able to cancel after college basketball season and restart easily later. The only things I didn’t like were location based issues like not being able to watch while traveling overseas on business, which I guess I can understand due to licensing.
The very annoying thing was that if you are out of your area, you can only watch TV stations live and cannot watch your local DVR recordings until after they have finished. Dulles airport is nearby but out of out of my local Baltimore area, so I could only watch Michigan football games live at the airport and could not start watching the game late to catch parts that I might have missed while getting to the airport until after the recording was complete. My previous cable company and Fios included both DC and Baltimore stations as local stations. I don’t think there is a good justification for the local recording viewing restrictions since the same game is on both stations.
I live out of state and went to several games per year and sold the rest of the games on Stubhub. I hope that the fanbase buying tickets will get the message and look for tickets there. The best advantage of Stubhub for buyers was that they could get instant download guaranteed tickets without worrying that the seller was trying to sell on multiple sites and may not fulfill the order. I hope that advantage will be obvious to the buyers on Seatgeek. I hope it won’t be harder to get a reasonable price on Seatgeek because I really like having season tickets.
As a season ticket holder, my initial reaction was disappointment that the USC game was on the road without a home matchup. At least we are getting some better out of conference home games in the future.
I took advantage of the 30% off for season ticket holders to get the Michigan Football Program and Ticket Guide (and a few other small items). I had looked through the book on each recent visit to the Mden, so this was a good excuse to go ahead and purchase it at a better price. If there is something you have been holding off on and it is not excluded, this is a good deal.
This isn't as good as the 50% off deal that was offered in May 2020 during COVID, but I am not sure how likely that is to happen again. Does anyone else have a sense of how big the best savings on general merchandise are likely to be? I think I found one 40% offer during Black Friday a while back.
I have upgraded my seats three times, but I have probably improved them as much as I am likely to do at the Blue donation level. I moved from upper rows of Section 42 to three rows above the concourse/handicapped seating in Section 4, which blocked the view a bit at times. I was very pleased to move down to just a bit below the concourse,and moved within my row 4 seats closer to mid-field last time. There isn't much room left to get closer to midfield.
I am driving 8 hours to get to games, so I only go to a few games per year and sell the rest. I am not sure I would get that much more reselling tickets in higher-donation level sections, especially since the ones I am reselling are usually less desirable games. There also were limited choices in the better sections (sometimes the upper row or two), and there look to be even fewer choices this year due to the team's recent success. I may check out options, but I will likely just stay put.
I would assume they are season tickets that they will send/transfer to the buyer later once they are distributed. That is why these aren’t listed as instant download.
I think the default is that the recordings stay for 9 months, though of course that could change in general or for a particular show. I didn’t experience problems with the DVR other than one Michigan basketball game where YouTube TV might have had technical problems with their BTN channel during the initial broadcast.
I enjoyed YouTube TV this past college football and basketball season. I am also taking advantage of the fact that it is easy to save money by just pausing it during the off-season.
I debated going and decided to get a ticket at the last minute. I had low expectations for autographs since it was never clear who would be available. After stopping at Blimpy Burger when it opened, I only got there at about 11:55 and it took at least 20 minutes to get in. I am glad I went down to the floor right away so I didn’t get stuck on the stairs when they had to limit the crowd on the floor. I did try to join in the lines with Blake and Donovan and then another autograph line later, but didn’t get too far in either line (which weren’t well organized due to a lack of space.) Hearing the speeches was OK, but I probably should have just stayed close up front instead of bothering with the lines. It was sort of cool to see Blake and Donovan shooting baskets. It was disappointing when things shut down early, but I stuck around for a bit to get some pictures and take advantage of being on the floor of Crisler, which isn’t something you can do too often without risking arrest. After everything seemed to be over, Donovan came up on the left and someone else asked him for an autograph, which he had to turn down. He very kindly let me get a selfie with him and shook my hand. Shortly after this a crowd started to gather, and some staff pulled him off to other football activities.
It was fun to be on the floor and was a real highlight for me to get a picture with Donovan, but I can see why many were disappointed. I did wonder ahead of time how it could be scheduled until 3 pm given the time of the game. I think it was set up for failure if the expectation was that you would be able to get autographs, because there were too many people, too small a space, and not enough time for that to happen for everyone. People around me commented that an earlier event in the field house that cost $100 was much more worthwhile since there was more space and lines you could get in for each player.
When I entered the game, a family behind me was told that they could get armbands to have their kids go onto the field after the game. I am not sure if they got to meet players or just be on the field, but hopefully that was a better experience for them if they were disappointed by the pep rally.
I too will happen be in town for another event the day before and am planning to attend the spring game, though I am not sure my family members will join me given the forecast.
Have they done the NIL pep rally in previous years? If so, did people find that enjoyable? Was it easy to get autographs? I would probably only be familiar with athletes from the football, hockey, and basketball teams.
I drove up from Maryland for the first game last year, but with the late start and almost 3 hour drive, I plan to attend the Sunday game if we win today. I am deciding whether to wait until after our game to make sure we are playing or to buy now to get a better choice of seats. Unfortunately, the local Penn State crowd will know before us whether they are playing on Sunday, so I might just buy it before their game.
I too started partway through this season and got a couple of MVPs in 34 turns after the Discord site switched to the orders website. On the Discord site, I sometimes tried to choose smaller star events to increase the chances of getting my first MVP, but I think that the more spread out strategy with fewer players involved in each territory helps make it easier. In the end, it still comes down to luck. The Texas AM strategy document mentioned giving orders to certain players to increase their MVP chances and star power, but I am not sure if the Michigan orders site is worrying about that.
I agree that there were definitely more Michigan fans in Miami last year, and heard some Georgia fans commenting on that after the game as well. I am not sure if potentially closer/cheaper flights will help TCU with attendance this time around.
I wanted to go to the Fiesta Bowl, but decided not to based on the how much more flights around the holidays are. (I would be flying from Maryland.). Flights to LA around the championship game look to be more reasonable, but I have to decide how much I am willing to pay for a ticket on the secondary market since I was about 20 priority points too low get them from the department.
The Big Ten Championship game webpage states that the East champion is the home team this year. It rotates each year. We would be on the home (Colts) side of the field.
I got a ticket on the visiting side last year, so I can’t speak for sitting behind the other team, but based on how many more Michigan fans than Iowa fans there were last year, I would expect there to be a lot of Michigan fans around you wherever you sit.
Stubhub should be more reliable in general than other sites since Michigan provides mechanisms for ticket holders to resell there. As a season ticket holder who lives 8 hours away and can’t make it to all the games, Stubhub has been a convenient way to try to sell games I cannot attend. If you look for the seats that are “instant download” and have already been linked for sale from the Michigan account, those should be pretty safe since you do not need to rely on someone to transfer it after the sale.
I attended the Friday games, but already had tickets to a concert on Sunday. I sat in row 2 of the upper deck and had a great view. There were a reasonable number of Michigan fans around me, but also fans of other teams or just hockey fans from the area that attend games regularly. The nonpartisan fan beside me noticed the gap in talent level and thought our pep band (sitting in the corner to our right) was impressive. I congratulated the pep band when I saw them picking up food at a nearby food court between games. I stayed for the second game and had a great time overall, even though I got back home at 1:30 AM.
This is under 3 hours from home for me here in Maryland, so I will be going up for the Friday game. I have a conflict for the potential Sunday game. The internet views from Section 204 at mid-ice seemed OK, so I just got a seat there as soon as Michigan's region was announced. It looks like there lots of seats still available in all sections. I went to a game at Yost the night of the OSU football game, so it will be fun to see them again in the NCAA tournament.
As an undergrad alum of UT Chattanooga, that was a disappointing end, but it was a lot closer than I expected. They missed a few too many free throws and shots down the stretch. While I was in grad school, Chattanooga made the Sweet 16 by beating Illinois, but they couldn't pull off the second tournament win against them. Hopefully Michigan will brighten my basketball spirits tomorrow.
Watched the game later on dvr, was very upset when they cut away with 2 minutes to go and a 2 point game. I realize that I live in Maryland, but that is about the worst decision I have ever seen. The start of Michigan’s games are frequently cut off, but never the end before this. Given that this network also thinks fans want to watch from a cheap seat camera angle way above the backboard, perhaps I should expect this.
I had season tickets and grad school, and I would go if I still lived nearby. I did see them in DC this year, and I have gone to the Big Ten tournaments and other games in DC and NYC.
I have football season tickets and am willing to drive up from Maryland 3 to 4 times per year. The football game day experience seems to make the trip more worthwhile than traveling for a 2 hour basketball game.
Big Ten Championship locker room T-shirt and pint glass. Picked up a ticket to the Orange Bowl after asking for these, so I will need to place another Mden order some time to commemorate this as well.
They should transfer it to you digitally, presumably from Ticketmaster since they sold the original tickets. That is what happened for the Big Ten championship ticket I purchased from Stubhub a couple days before the game. My seller transferred it within a couple of hours. The risk is that the seller might not have a ticket and is trying to short sell a ticket hoping to get a cheaper one to send you closer to the game, or that the seller waits to transfer the ticket to see if they can sell it for more elsewhere and just pay a penalty to the site for not producing the ticket. Not sure how often this happens, but I read that this has happened for past big events. The ticket sites will refund your money if you can’t get in and possibly try to get you another ticket, but that isn’t ideal after traveling down there. Getting it as a resale from Ticketmaster would probably be somewhat safer, though I am not sure how risky the others really are.
They should transfer it to you digitally, presumably from Ticketmaster since they sold the original tickets. That is what happened for the Big Ten championship ticket I purchased from Stubhub a couple days before the game. My seller transferred it within a couple of hours. The risk is that the seller might not have a ticket and is trying to short sell a ticket hoping to get a cheaper one to send you closer to the game, or that the seller waits to transfer the ticket to see if they can sell it for more elsewhere and just pay a penalty to the site for not producing the ticket. Not sure how often this happens, but I read that this has happened for past big events. The ticket sites will refund your money if you can’t get in and possibly try to get you another ticket, but that isn’t ideal after traveling down there. Getting it as a resale from Ticketmaster would probably be somewhat safer, though I am not sure how risky the others really are.
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Based on weather forecasts, decided to switch plans at the last minute to go from Maryland to New York instead of Arkansas or Dayton. I got up really early to drive from the hotel in Albany up to Point au Roche State Park (near Plattsburgh) in upper NY. This would have been a lovely way to relax and spend the morning waiting, but I got concerned about the weather forecasts showing increasing chances of clouds and decided to drive another 2.25 hours to Newport, Vermont which had a better forecast. Luckily this was backroads and did not get crowded until I arrived in the city hosting the event. There was a really nice beach on a lake at the public event site. It was fun to meet various people who had traveled there.
In 2017 I observed the total eclipse completely blocked by clouds at my site, so I had at least some idea of what to expect for it getting dark. The moment taking my glasses off after totality was a much more dramatic event than I could had ever expected, and was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It was a long drive back and after midnight before I got to the hotel, and I probably could have just stayed at my original site, but I didn’t want to take any chances on missing out. I hope I get a chance to see another one some day.
Driving from Maryland to Northern NY after deciding forecast looked more stable than previous plans for staying in Arkansas or Dayton. I willhave to get up super early to drive several hours Monday morning now since that was the best I could do at the last minute for hotels. Hoping this works out because my trip to SC in 2017 resulted in seeing just clouds at totality, though I was only 10 to 15 miles from a colleague who had a great view (and it only took about 15 minutes to drive out from under the clouds afterwards). Some spots in Ohio and Indiana look like they may be OK, so good luck to everyone trying to view this rare event. Definitely try to get to totality if you can.
I will put in another vote for Youtube TV. It is nice that you can easily cancel during the offseason. I will cancel soon since the basketball team won't be playing much longer, and I am not sure about paying for extra months just for the Michigan hockey team this season.
The unlimited DVR is nice. The only downsides are that I can't watch overseas, and the restriction of local stations causes issues sometimes. Even though I live between two viewing areas (DC, Baltimore) for which cable included both stations, when I go to Dulles airport, I can't start watching from the beginning of a live football game on local channels until the game is over. This latter issue seems unnecessary and is annoying since Michigan football was the main reason I subscribed.
Was busy doing other things, and tuned in late hoping Peacock would let me select an option to start from the beginning. It went directly to live action. I saw the score was 69-41, saving me from wasting time watching this. (I did rewind to watch the first 5 minutes or so of the game.) I need to decide whether it is worth keeping the $1.99 per month Black Friday deal for Peacock to wait for football season or to just bail on it.
I placed a large order on January 10, which finally shipped on January 30 and arrived on February 2. By that time, I already had received another somewhat large order from Dick's during their 30% off sale. I probably purchased a few more items than I should have, but it is a nice way to remember attending the championship game. I noticed that Dick's now has lots of items at 50% off, but I probably have enough for now. (I placed another small order yesterday for a few items at Mden that were not going to ship until the end of February.) I am still waiting for the Michigan Daily poster. My excuse to my wife is that it may be another 26 years before this chance comes around again.
We also enjoyed watching it. It got better when the announcers decided they didn’t need to talk over what was happening as if it were the Rose Bowl parade. I also wonder what we missed during the commercial break. However, I am glad the Big Ten network made an effort to show this even though they already had another sporting event scheduled. As others have mentioned, it was very amusing that OSU had to see their hockey game preempted by this reminder of our football dominance.
Southwest flight back yesterday afternoon from Houston Hobby to Baltimore was delayed about an hour due to late arrival/boarding then another 2 hours waiting for clearance to fly due to air traffic control restrictions. The pilot claimed that all the traffic from corporate jets at nearby airports were also having to wait their turn the same as us. I was just happy to get home with no other problems after a fantastic win by Team 144.
I think I saw something on the college football playoff website about purchasing physical souvenir tickets. I think the resale tickets will all be digital. About 10 years ago, Stubhub would have a location to go pick up physical tickets for events like the Big Ten basketball tournament, but those days are long gone.
This has some similarities to my experience. I attended the Jan 1, 1998 Rose Bowl as a student, so I didn’t try to attend since travel costs would be a lot more than to get to Houston if we made it. Flights were a lot more around New Year’s than a week later. I had never been to Houston either, so that had an added draw of being able to add on some tourist things as well. The space center was fun today (but didn’t try alumni event there), and I look forward to the Pep rally tomorrow.
A coworker who was a Notre Dame alum had reserved a tour to attend the championship game if they made it some years back with the explanation that she wasn’t sure when they might be in that position again. That didn’t work out for her, but it did start me thinking about trying to attend in person if we got that chance.
I am superstitious enough that I will wear the Team 144 shirt that I snagged at the Tshirt toss during the season opener, and which I have worn during every subsequent game so far this season (including sleeping in it during a night game while I was traveling in Europe.). This is probably more for me to say I wore it during all the games than really thinking it will affect the outcome, but I did make sure to pack it.
I did this several months ago with Southwest, which is nice because even the lowest fares give you a voucher with no time limits if you cancel. When I checked several weeks ago to consider changing who might fly down with me, prices had doubled. I am glad that I scheduled some time for sightseeing ahead of the game so that I will hopefully beat out an upcoming storm on the east coast.
Doing the CFP RSVP the morning before the Big 10 championship game worked out well for me, though it was certainly a risk. The seats aren’t great and prices may get cheaper as we get closer to the game, but it is nice not to have to try to decide on getting tickets now. I am also very glad we won so that I won’t get blamed for throwing away money on the RSVP option and getting nothing in return.
Deleted.
I was a little worried when I saw this post, but it doesn’t look like the impact will be as bad as it could have been. My section 4 seats are likely in the blue middle tier section, but the difference in tier levels seems mostly insignificant. I got worried a bit about Michigan trying to match prices of other schools because Nebraska fans sitting near our seats told us they would have to donate over $1000 each to get those seats. (A quick Google search verified this.)
If Southwest Airlines works for you in terms of location, then you can cancel it if necessary and get a voucher with no time limits for using.
They did the same thing last year with an initial email requiring 500 points and then a follow-up email with a lower threshold.
Last year, the cutoff for getting tickets to the championship game was around 160 points, which was lower than I expected based on cutoffs for the Big Ten championship and Fiesta Bowl. This could be a combination of a larger number of tickets set aside, being further away, and a potentially more expensive ticket. I am a bit under this unless I make some additional donations, but not that far off. I would guess there will be more requests this year since we seem to have a better chance of winning this year and don’t have an injury to our best running back.
I think the proper way to compare costs is that if you think Michigan has a 50 percent chance of winning the Rose Bowl, then the difference between paying $1150 for a ticket on the open market and risking $700 for the right to purchase that ticket at that price is that you have a 50 percent chance of losing $700. This would make your expected cost for comparison purposes to be $1150 + (700 / 2) = $1500. The calculation should vary a bit depending on whatever the true odds for Michigan winning the first game since Michigan is favored, but probably not that much.
Whether this is appealing depends on your risk tolerance and desire to gamble. I was able to get this Friday morning before the Big Ten championship game at a much lower price point (but still debated because the price had gone up $60 from what it had been the previous days). I am glad I did this, but I would be more hesitant at the current prices.
That has been true the last 2 years that they did not have a pep rally, but they did have the band and cheerleaders performing in the Fanfest at the convention center. The Big Ten website says that the East division band will perform at 5:15 pm. This was fun to attend, but it does not leave a lot of time if you want to stop somewhere else to eat before the game. Even fast food restaurants were pretty crowded.
While attending the game, I layered lots of good luck T-shirts to stay warm. I wore the Team 144 shirt I was lucky to grab in the Tshirt toss at the season opener, which I have had on during every subsequent game this season. I also wore a Victors 42-27 T-shirt and Driving in Ohio T-shirt in honor of our last two wins over OSU, as well as a Woodson jersey for good measure to harken back to my student days and our last national championship.
I switched to Seatgeek since that will let the buyers get the tickets without having to depend on me transferring them. I was worried that they may not get as many views as Stubhub and that it would be harder to sell there, but I haven't had any problems selling my extra tickets there. (I am sure that how well the team is doing helps.) The only annoying thing is that they adjust the listed price the buyers see, so it takes a little trial and error to determine how the price will compare to others in your section. I was surprised that their recommended price for the Purdue game that I listed a month ahead of time sold within a day, because I thought all of the ticket prices were crazy high given the expected level of the opponent. (This was around the level of the MSU game the year before. I think Parent's weekend helped with that sale.)
The Jim Henson / Kermit statue in front of the Stamp Student Union is also kind of cool.
One clarification is that parking at the College Park metro lot is $15 during football games if you do not ride the metro into the city. You can park at any other station for free. Greenbelt is convenient nearby place to park and ride one stop.
Agree that the Metro is an easy way to get there, even if parking and only taking it one stop from Greenbelt.
I attended the games against Virginia and PSU this year (using season tickets purchased mainly for this game against Michigan). The upper sections on the visiting side of the field will be overwhelmingly Michigan fans because they don't sell very many season tickets up there, and it was very empty for the Friday night game against Virginia. I thought the student section was the only lower area that seemed full at the start of those games, but it will become empty if Maryland falls too far behind.
I will be there along with some fellow alums from work. I missed the deadline for getting away game tickets from Michigan by forgetting to respond until the last day and not remembering the deadline was 5 PM rather than midnight. Since I knew this could be win #1000 if all went well, we ended up getting some cheap season tickets ($99) before they went on sale individually, really just for this game. Went to a couple of other games with the first-time experience of rooting for Maryland at their stadium since they weren't playing Michigan (my kids do go to Maryland), and donated the rest. Looking forward to hopefully seeing Win #1000, and will be very mad at the NCAA if they mess up Win #1000 in the future by making us vacate games over this stupid scandal.
I saw that it will be the Noon game on Fox.
I agree that Toledo is a great option coming from the South. The prices are very reasonable compared to game weekends in or around Ann Arbor, so that is my default location to stay. It takes around an hour to get to campus if you arrive ahead of the heaviest traffic. If you are able to walk for parking, I have found parking in residential areas a bit southwest of Main Street / downtown and then heading west to 94 enabled me to get out after night games more quickly than I would have anticipated.
I am also a hiker and have definitely enjoyed trying to visit and hike in as many National Parks as possible more than I would trying to highpoint. I am currently at 38 out of 63 and will soon be at 40. I will have to determine whether it is worth the effort to get to some of the less accessible parks in Alaska or American Samoa.
Of the handful of high points I have happened to hike, hiking up Mt. Washington and Katahdin on consecutive days a couple years ago was a lot of fun, though definitely tiring by the time I got to the second hike.
Last season was my first with YouTube TV instead of Fios TV. A big advantage was being able to cancel after college basketball season and restart easily later. The only things I didn’t like were location based issues like not being able to watch while traveling overseas on business, which I guess I can understand due to licensing.
The very annoying thing was that if you are out of your area, you can only watch TV stations live and cannot watch your local DVR recordings until after they have finished. Dulles airport is nearby but out of out of my local Baltimore area, so I could only watch Michigan football games live at the airport and could not start watching the game late to catch parts that I might have missed while getting to the airport until after the recording was complete. My previous cable company and Fios included both DC and Baltimore stations as local stations. I don’t think there is a good justification for the local recording viewing restrictions since the same game is on both stations.
both Baltimore and
I live out of state and went to several games per year and sold the rest of the games on Stubhub. I hope that the fanbase buying tickets will get the message and look for tickets there. The best advantage of Stubhub for buyers was that they could get instant download guaranteed tickets without worrying that the seller was trying to sell on multiple sites and may not fulfill the order. I hope that advantage will be obvious to the buyers on Seatgeek. I hope it won’t be harder to get a reasonable price on Seatgeek because I really like having season tickets.
I did not realize she lived there. I lived for a year in University Towers, so that will be a new fun fact to share during party games.
In terms of the main thread, being a math grad student at UM when the Unabomber was caught definitely made for interesting times.
As a season ticket holder, my initial reaction was disappointment that the USC game was on the road without a home matchup. At least we are getting some better out of conference home games in the future.
I took advantage of the 30% off for season ticket holders to get the Michigan Football Program and Ticket Guide (and a few other small items). I had looked through the book on each recent visit to the Mden, so this was a good excuse to go ahead and purchase it at a better price. If there is something you have been holding off on and it is not excluded, this is a good deal.
This isn't as good as the 50% off deal that was offered in May 2020 during COVID, but I am not sure how likely that is to happen again. Does anyone else have a sense of how big the best savings on general merchandise are likely to be? I think I found one 40% offer during Black Friday a while back.
I have upgraded my seats three times, but I have probably improved them as much as I am likely to do at the Blue donation level. I moved from upper rows of Section 42 to three rows above the concourse/handicapped seating in Section 4, which blocked the view a bit at times. I was very pleased to move down to just a bit below the concourse,and moved within my row 4 seats closer to mid-field last time. There isn't much room left to get closer to midfield.
I am driving 8 hours to get to games, so I only go to a few games per year and sell the rest. I am not sure I would get that much more reselling tickets in higher-donation level sections, especially since the ones I am reselling are usually less desirable games. There also were limited choices in the better sections (sometimes the upper row or two), and there look to be even fewer choices this year due to the team's recent success. I may check out options, but I will likely just stay put.
I would assume they are season tickets that they will send/transfer to the buyer later once they are distributed. That is why these aren’t listed as instant download.
I think the default is that the recordings stay for 9 months, though of course that could change in general or for a particular show. I didn’t experience problems with the DVR other than one Michigan basketball game where YouTube TV might have had technical problems with their BTN channel during the initial broadcast.
I enjoyed YouTube TV this past college football and basketball season. I am also taking advantage of the fact that it is easy to save money by just pausing it during the off-season.
I debated going and decided to get a ticket at the last minute. I had low expectations for autographs since it was never clear who would be available. After stopping at Blimpy Burger when it opened, I only got there at about 11:55 and it took at least 20 minutes to get in. I am glad I went down to the floor right away so I didn’t get stuck on the stairs when they had to limit the crowd on the floor. I did try to join in the lines with Blake and Donovan and then another autograph line later, but didn’t get too far in either line (which weren’t well organized due to a lack of space.) Hearing the speeches was OK, but I probably should have just stayed close up front instead of bothering with the lines. It was sort of cool to see Blake and Donovan shooting baskets. It was disappointing when things shut down early, but I stuck around for a bit to get some pictures and take advantage of being on the floor of Crisler, which isn’t something you can do too often without risking arrest. After everything seemed to be over, Donovan came up on the left and someone else asked him for an autograph, which he had to turn down. He very kindly let me get a selfie with him and shook my hand. Shortly after this a crowd started to gather, and some staff pulled him off to other football activities.
It was fun to be on the floor and was a real highlight for me to get a picture with Donovan, but I can see why many were disappointed. I did wonder ahead of time how it could be scheduled until 3 pm given the time of the game. I think it was set up for failure if the expectation was that you would be able to get autographs, because there were too many people, too small a space, and not enough time for that to happen for everyone. People around me commented that an earlier event in the field house that cost $100 was much more worthwhile since there was more space and lines you could get in for each player.
When I entered the game, a family behind me was told that they could get armbands to have their kids go onto the field after the game. I am not sure if they got to meet players or just be on the field, but hopefully that was a better experience for them if they were disappointed by the pep rally.
I too will happen be in town for another event the day before and am planning to attend the spring game, though I am not sure my family members will join me given the forecast.
Have they done the NIL pep rally in previous years? If so, did people find that enjoyable? Was it easy to get autographs? I would probably only be familiar with athletes from the football, hockey, and basketball teams.
I drove up from Maryland for the first game last year, but with the late start and almost 3 hour drive, I plan to attend the Sunday game if we win today. I am deciding whether to wait until after our game to make sure we are playing or to buy now to get a better choice of seats. Unfortunately, the local Penn State crowd will know before us whether they are playing on Sunday, so I might just buy it before their game.
I too started partway through this season and got a couple of MVPs in 34 turns after the Discord site switched to the orders website. On the Discord site, I sometimes tried to choose smaller star events to increase the chances of getting my first MVP, but I think that the more spread out strategy with fewer players involved in each territory helps make it easier. In the end, it still comes down to luck. The Texas AM strategy document mentioned giving orders to certain players to increase their MVP chances and star power, but I am not sure if the Michigan orders site is worrying about that.
I agree that there were definitely more Michigan fans in Miami last year, and heard some Georgia fans commenting on that after the game as well. I am not sure if potentially closer/cheaper flights will help TCU with attendance this time around.
I wanted to go to the Fiesta Bowl, but decided not to based on the how much more flights around the holidays are. (I would be flying from Maryland.). Flights to LA around the championship game look to be more reasonable, but I have to decide how much I am willing to pay for a ticket on the secondary market since I was about 20 priority points too low get them from the department.
The Big Ten Championship game webpage states that the East champion is the home team this year. It rotates each year. We would be on the home (Colts) side of the field.
I got a ticket on the visiting side last year, so I can’t speak for sitting behind the other team, but based on how many more Michigan fans than Iowa fans there were last year, I would expect there to be a lot of Michigan fans around you wherever you sit.
Stubhub should be more reliable in general than other sites since Michigan provides mechanisms for ticket holders to resell there. As a season ticket holder who lives 8 hours away and can’t make it to all the games, Stubhub has been a convenient way to try to sell games I cannot attend. If you look for the seats that are “instant download” and have already been linked for sale from the Michigan account, those should be pretty safe since you do not need to rely on someone to transfer it after the sale.
I attended the Friday games, but already had tickets to a concert on Sunday. I sat in row 2 of the upper deck and had a great view. There were a reasonable number of Michigan fans around me, but also fans of other teams or just hockey fans from the area that attend games regularly. The nonpartisan fan beside me noticed the gap in talent level and thought our pep band (sitting in the corner to our right) was impressive. I congratulated the pep band when I saw them picking up food at a nearby food court between games. I stayed for the second game and had a great time overall, even though I got back home at 1:30 AM.
This is under 3 hours from home for me here in Maryland, so I will be going up for the Friday game. I have a conflict for the potential Sunday game. The internet views from Section 204 at mid-ice seemed OK, so I just got a seat there as soon as Michigan's region was announced. It looks like there lots of seats still available in all sections. I went to a game at Yost the night of the OSU football game, so it will be fun to see them again in the NCAA tournament.
As an undergrad alum of UT Chattanooga, that was a disappointing end, but it was a lot closer than I expected. They missed a few too many free throws and shots down the stretch. While I was in grad school, Chattanooga made the Sweet 16 by beating Illinois, but they couldn't pull off the second tournament win against them. Hopefully Michigan will brighten my basketball spirits tomorrow.
Watched the game later on dvr, was very upset when they cut away with 2 minutes to go and a 2 point game. I realize that I live in Maryland, but that is about the worst decision I have ever seen. The start of Michigan’s games are frequently cut off, but never the end before this. Given that this network also thinks fans want to watch from a cheap seat camera angle way above the backboard, perhaps I should expect this.
I had season tickets and grad school, and I would go if I still lived nearby. I did see them in DC this year, and I have gone to the Big Ten tournaments and other games in DC and NYC.
I have football season tickets and am willing to drive up from Maryland 3 to 4 times per year. The football game day experience seems to make the trip more worthwhile than traveling for a 2 hour basketball game.
This was great! My kids loved it, even though they don’t care much about football.
Big Ten Championship locker room T-shirt and pint glass. Picked up a ticket to the Orange Bowl after asking for these, so I will need to place another Mden order some time to commemorate this as well.
They should transfer it to you digitally, presumably from Ticketmaster since they sold the original tickets. That is what happened for the Big Ten championship ticket I purchased from Stubhub a couple days before the game. My seller transferred it within a couple of hours. The risk is that the seller might not have a ticket and is trying to short sell a ticket hoping to get a cheaper one to send you closer to the game, or that the seller waits to transfer the ticket to see if they can sell it for more elsewhere and just pay a penalty to the site for not producing the ticket. Not sure how often this happens, but I read that this has happened for past big events. The ticket sites will refund your money if you can’t get in and possibly try to get you another ticket, but that isn’t ideal after traveling down there. Getting it as a resale from Ticketmaster would probably be somewhat safer, though I am not sure how risky the others really are.
They should transfer it to you digitally, presumably from Ticketmaster since they sold the original tickets. That is what happened for the Big Ten championship ticket I purchased from Stubhub a couple days before the game. My seller transferred it within a couple of hours. The risk is that the seller might not have a ticket and is trying to short sell a ticket hoping to get a cheaper one to send you closer to the game, or that the seller waits to transfer the ticket to see if they can sell it for more elsewhere and just pay a penalty to the site for not producing the ticket. Not sure how often this happens, but I read that this has happened for past big events. The ticket sites will refund your money if you can’t get in and possibly try to get you another ticket, but that isn’t ideal after traveling down there. Getting it as a resale from Ticketmaster would probably be somewhat safer, though I am not sure how risky the others really are.