road games

I can't find tickets for Ohio State! I'm freaking out! Wait, let's go back a bit to understand my play here, and how it blew up in my face, in the latest installment of this secondary ticket article I write that you apparently find useful even though you can do a lot of this research yourself and at times it's a total bald face plea for seats. Two. Any section.

Yes I emailed our sponsor, TiqIQ already. He said it'll cost:

UM/OSU currently averages $420.33 on the secondary market, and that's with a 3% price drop this week. It's the most expensive matchup between the two of the past 6 seasons in either building.

Current get-in is $230 for a single seat & $300 for a pair (each after fees).

2012 in Columbus had a nearly identical average price ($419.21) but much lower Get-in ($150)

  • Highest average was on 11/4 ($432), Lowest was 9/17 ($296).
  • Highest get-in was on 11/9 ($243), Lowest was 9/8 ($117).

Let me know if you want any other data.

Yeesh. The singles right now are about $220. I'm betting they stick.

YESTERDAY'S TRADING

Michigan's been on the road for the most part since I last checked in, and those went as planned. Emailers reported they got their Minnesota tickets for $20 outside the game, and Indiana there were a lot of free ones available despite the nice weather.

For Rutgers everything online was face right up until the time I had to leave for Ann Arbor, and around the stadium people were asking for $50 and watching buyers walk away when I went in. I had to cast around to find someone to use my other seat—I was planning to go with Demorest until he got sick, and then my brother was sick, and my friends were either sick or moving, and then I had to explain that I can't move couches because it's my job to go to a Michigan-Rutgers game. This was a common tale; there were a ton of last-minute single seats open, a thing that happens during flu season and when the weather's bad.

CURRENT RATES

I ended up taking Ace's press pass for Penn State so I'm out of that market, but I've been watching it closely and, like Penn State, it performed pretty much as expected…until this week:

Game In Oct Now Dips Buy? Reasoning
@Penn State $110 $75 $75 Now See discussion below.
Ohio State $181 $225 $225 Now Once OSU beats State, the Bucks are comin'

That dip was sudden and dramatic, and took place almost entirely with big groups of tickets becoming available in the northwest end zone:

image

Let me zoom in:

image

I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure those are Michigan's allotment that suddenly made available huge swaths of unused seats. I'm basing this assumption on the fact that these were where the away fans sat in 2013 when we went. This was their Wisconsin game in 2012 to show it better since their red sticks out:

10392115

See the strip of Badgers on the upper-left/two-decker side?

This is just a total guess but if there's a reason Michigan group tickets suddenly fell back into the pool it's probably because basketball plays Xavier at 9 p.m. tonight, then Penn State at noon tomorrow, so going to both would require either a constitution that doesn't require sleep or a private jet. My hypothesis is people in position to snatch up these tickets early did so, and now they can't use them.

Then there's The Game. I expect Ohio State to crush Michigan State on Saturday. If that occurs, the Buckeyes will rush to buy seats and single seats will jump $250. If Michigan loses that will put more tix on the market, but it's a market that will be moving so fast the price will stand. I think that's about the limit; the Big House has too many seats to fill to cruise over $250. If you MUST go and you can't afford that, you can try to find some greedy bastard who waited too long to make a profit 10 minutes after kickoff, but expect to end up watching in a bar.

CHEAP TIP

If your friend offers to let you use his seats but he's out of town and his tickets are at home—have your buddy call the ticket office and release them to you. This can be done online as well. Sometimes folks don't realize the paper tickets they left in a drawer don't have to go unused.

BEST DEAL RIGHT NOW (that I can find on the sponsor's site because let's support people who support us okay?)

Wanna see the ONLY good non-conference game that'll be in Crisler all year? There are a bunch of mid-court upper deck seats available for under $20 right now.

image

You won't be able to see Doyle's sweat bubbles from there, but I can confirm Robinson's threes look sweet from 225.

P.S. Said sponsor has an app now in case you're on your phone reading this and don't have microscopic fingertips. If you're using them use the code MGOBLOG and they'll give you 10% off certain listings.

We had a survey, 3,556 people responded to it. We learned some things about them:

1. They only get to a few games

image

The average was two a year but the split is more like 26% go to no games, 36% get to one, and 38% get to more than one.

2. Most don't have season tickets

image

Four in five (79%) responders don't. Also, when these were run against the previous question season, ticket holders averaged 5.05 games a year, while non-season ticket holders went to 1.11 per year. Season ticket holders were then asked if they would have renewed if Michigan had kept Hoke. Most (68 percent) would but even 32 percent "no" is ominous:

image

3. There's a clear preference for ADs

Rating Brandon %RS Hackett %RS
1 (bad) 1488 42% 17 0.5%
2 (poor) 1654 47% 0 0%
3 (meh) 322 9% 28 1%
4 (okay) 33 1% 426 12%
5 (good) 19 0.5% 3040 87%
[no response] 40 - 45 -
Avg. 1.70 - 4.84 -

On overwhelming majority (almost 90%) of respondents gave Brandon a 1 or a 2. Conversely, Hackett cleaned up; among Michigan fans just 17 people who are impossible to please out of 3400 is some kind of magic. Brian demanded I combine these in a bar graph.

image

Ace: "That is beautiful."

Brian: "See? Bar graphs!"

4. Harbaugh?

image

Harbaugh has some catching up to do on his boss, at a still really positive approval rating of 4.27 out of 5. Then again Hackett has already reeled in a 5-star while I guess Harbaugh has yet to do so.

5. As for his predecessor

image

Yes.

6. They'll pay more for better opponents, but not too much.

image

What they have now is about what the market wants to bear.

7. What they want to wear

image

Either the readership didn't understand that Underground Printing is our t-shirt guys and this would essentially mean MGoBlog gets to design all the uniforms, or they understood too well. Anyway UGP barely beat Under Armour, probably because they're the only company other than Nike that spells their name right.

8. Who they'd like to play

You're going to have to click this one I think:

image

Notre Dame is the obvious one, and the next-most popular was Harbaugh taking a shot at his old team. Stanford makes a lot of sense in fan type, location worth visiting, old history, and a team we haven't seen much of. LSU would be great too though it probably will be less fun (and less easy) once Les and Cam are out of there. The Pac and SEC were easily the most desirable conferences. A breakdown:

Conference Votes
SEC 3587
Pac 12 3139
ACC (no ND) 1312
Notre Dame 1122
Big XII 452

The games already scheduled weren't included, otherwise I'm sure the interest in Texas and Oklahoma would shoot the Big XII back up to at least ACC levels, while Washington and Colorado could put the Pac 12 on equal footing with the SEC.

usedtoknow

The Question:

Dave: What future non-conference game are you most looking forward to?

------------------------------

The Responses:

Seth: As the usual question-asker I rarely get a chance to take the obvious response, in this case the 2020 trip to Washingon. So I'm gonna celebrate my good fortune with a top five list:

1. Seattle. Many U.S. cities are basically the same buildings, chain restaurants and NFL team just rearranged. Seattle is one of the few who are not that. Imagine San Francisco's waterfront, Brooklyn-like neighborhoods, and Portland's love affair with the 1990s. Then add 1000% more polar fleece, and coffee so good you should probably avoid it lest you spend the rest of your life as a Whole Foods shopper.

057_sunset_at_the_pier_2

Seattle pier [me]

2. Michigan-Washington = classic football. In addition to the once-a-decade home-and-home we've been scheduling since the 1950s, we've met the Huskies four times in Pasadena, including Bo's first win:


(the only time in history "who wants it more" was probably a thing)

It's rare enough to keep them exotic, and familiar enough for a wealth of subplots, like the 1983 game where Michigan learned The Wave.*

3. Washington fans. Like other schools you can name with a rich football tradition, a healthy respect for academics, and who have survived Ty Willingham, Huskies fans are surprisingly tolerable. They remember Marlin Jackson like we remember Omar Lowe.

4. Gameday should be pretty good. It's one of the older programs in a gorgeous stadium on a gorgeous old campus in early September. In 2020 Chris Petersen would be in his seventh year, Harbaugh his sixth, provided both survive until then. No bets that far in the future are sure things in college football, but the two former quarterbacks are likely enough to have their respective programs consistently ranked by then.

5. Family. The moment the news broke last year that Michigan was going to Washington I secured a promise from the wife that we'd be there, then called my particularly awesome cousin in Seattle to book our room. This thing is stone; family members have received notification to keep all weddings and pregnancies clear.

* Michael Florek covered the history of this for HTTV '14. Short version is the Huskies stole it from some Vancouver hockey fans, then M cheerleaders picked it up on the '83 visit and taught it to Michigan Stadium, where the bowl was a natural fit (and Bo blew one). Michigan fans took it to Tiger Stadium in the 1984 World Series, and it went national from there.

[After the jump: somebody I used to know]