We’re back! Apparently even the sponsor was like “What’s the matter, why aren’t you doing these?” and then offered to do whatever to bring it back.

That Sponsor: TicketIQ of course. We like them because they’re the ticket site that doesn’t hide the fees. The online sites with official all have about the same inventory and prices, so if you go that route go with the one who gives us money and isn’t trying to hide the fact that they make some until you’re about to buy.

SMU: CHEAP OR FREE

Unless you’re trying to sit together as a group the SMU game is going to be the cheapest get this season. It’s not the opener, the opponent is not good, and it’s sandwiched by home games. The weather will be nice but not spectacular. It’s a good day to take your kid.

Tickets are trading well below face now—$27 with fees for a single, $30 for two together last I looked. Any time the tickets dip below face days before the game it’s a sure sign that free tickets will be out there. Make yourself known and you’re likely to have someone offer. The next dog on the schedule is Maryland on October 6th.

[After THE JUMP: Northwestern tickets, and when to panic]

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NORTHWESTERN: DON’T PANIC

Ralph Garcia of TicketIQ offered some historic pricing for NW games on the Thursday before each game:

• 10/8/11: $144 AVG/$79 Cheapest (@ NW)
• 11/16/13: $141 AVG/$60 Cheapest (@ NW)
• 11/8/14: $62 AVG/$22 Cheapest (@ NW)
• 9/29/18: $175 AVG/$82 Cheapest (@ NW)

The 2011 game featured 5-0 Michigan vs. 2-2 Northwestern. Denard and co. were down by 10 at the half. The ‘13 game was in a monsoon and ended in overtime after the crazy field goal. 2014 was M00N and Michigan came in with five losses.

The lesson here is Michigan fans are going to set the price unless Northwestern is historically good. They’re not, so Michigan fans are going to set the price. You should be able to find them the week of the game, or if you want to grab a couple of seats at $65 each from the ticket office go and do so. I found seats for 2013 the morning of.

If you are getting jumpy and want to buy now, I suggest buying good seats—the influx of once-in-a-blue-moon Michigan fans in Chicago is mostly propping up the get-in price while people ignore the $100 seats on Row 35 at midfield.

SETH’S THEORY OF PSD PRICING

If you’re looking further out, the rule of thumb is sellers will try to recoup what they paid, and for non-marquee games that means face value. For the marquee games the schools have figured out what the upcharge is going to be, but you have to divine their thinking from the numbers they provided.

In the last decade schools have gotten extraordinarily good at predicting the peak market value of their season tickets and pricing them accordingly, hiding the markups with “Preferred Seat Donations” to use Michigan’s term. Because of this almost everyone who sells their tickets on the secondary market loses money on them, even if they’re technically getting $100 or more above the face value.

PSDs are no longer tax-deductible this year so we don’t have to calculate any marginal value from that. My incredibly non-scientific method for factoring in PSDs is to divide the “donation” by the number of marquee games. For example MSU this year has Michigan and Ohio State at home (screwing Michigan screwed everybody) and the rest of their home schedule is Utah State, CMU, Northwestern, Purdue, and Rutgers. So simply divide the PSD by two and add that to the OSU and Michigan ticket prices. Michigan’s this year are Wisconsin and Penn State, and sorta Nebraska. So to get the estimated face price I added 40% of the PSD to UW and PSU tickets and 10% of it to Nebraska.

THE DISTANT FUTURE: NEBRASKA

This one is more interesting because it’s a name team and Nebraska fans travel well. Remember how we felt about Harbaugh in 2015? They’re on that same Scott Frost high, and I think they’ve been providing a steady stream of buyers to keep this price inflated online.

Seats	Face	PSD	eFace	Now	Recommendation
Midfield	$110	$630	$173	$224	wait
The 35	$110	$500	$160	$194	wait
The 25	$95	$370	$132	$185	wait
Goal line	$80	$210	$101	$125	wait
Endzone	$80	$78	$88	$85	wait

I’ll get into strategies for this in the next post (yes there will be one).

BEST DEAL ON THE SPONSOR’S SITE:

This is a good opportunity for a full Michigan game experience in a great seat. I like sitting mid-way up more than down low. These Section 44 seats in row 44 are some of the best in the house. You come in the stairs side by Crisler and you’re only a little way’s down from the exit and you can see everything. These are old alumni seats too. Only downside is I believe there’s a group of IMG seats near here that draw a certain type of annoying fan. But hey, there’s a long-haired blogger around there too.