Ticket Watch Told You So Comment Count

Seth

Event Reminder: We have a tailgate tomorrow morning at 1300 S. MAIN Street to raise money for Marlin Jackson’s Fight for Life Foundation.

When I describe this organization I start by asking if you’ve seen the third fourth (HT comments) season of The Wire—the one where you get a heartbreakingly realistic picture of what happens to poor, inner city kids. Well my wife the child therapist who works with exactly those kinds of kids for a living looked at Marlin’s programs when we first started doing stuff with him, and was blown away by how it was designed for exactly what they need. If it wasn’t started by a two-time All-American for Michigan it would still be one of the best bang-for-buck charities I’ve ever seen. Marlin lived what these kids go through, and he used his Michigan education to do something about it.

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Tailgater Concierge gave us the space and will have satellite TVs set up to watch the noon games, and will be grilling hot dogs and serving. Wolverine State Brewing generously donated three half-barrels of their best beer. And Eat Well Embrace Life is providing a ton of hummus and chips and pop. We’ll also have a raffle, and you can ask Ace about Harambe.

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YESTERDAY’S TRADING:

Penn State came down-down-down as it dawned on more and more fans that it was going to be a slaughter. Cheapest I found was a guy walking from Main Street past Crisler offering $30 each for two seats next to him. That’s a good baseline for Indiana and Maryland, which are still hanging out in the $50s.

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[Hit THE JUMP for how Michigan’s best ticket this year is worth face]

SCONNIE TIX: Sometimes I’m wrong about stuff. Sometimes a team I don’t think is any good will beat Notre Dame and their fans will get super-excited and the ticket prices skyrocket. Last week was not one of those times:

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People in the comments argued with me. Let’s check in on those prices now:

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This market is still holding higher than they’ll be tomorrow, however. One reason is because Michigan charged more for these (endzone tix are $100 face), so there’s a gravitational pull toward at least getting your money back. Another reason is because this a top ten matchup, despite the line being two scores.

What’s dragging it down right now is weather, which is up in the air. We’re on the top end of a rotation that is sending weather at us from East to West while it moves in the natural West-East direction.

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I spoke to two meteorologists today, both of whom think that the public projections are unreasonably optimistic, but the doom from yesterday is unreasonably pessimistic:

There will be isolated showers around, but unlikely to rain all day. Over the course of the 8 hours or so of daylight it probably rains for 30-60 minutes. The best chance for rain looks to be in the morning. Chance for rain is 50-60%. Don't expect much sun on Sunday.

It’s going to rain on and off, with some T-storms and probably a fair amount of wind. For ticket prices this means more wait-and-see people who are likely to not go tomorrow—I bet a bunch hit the market as the morning showers cycle roll through. I’m betting $50 or $40 at the gate, but bring $100.

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THINGS IN THE FUTURE

Game July Aug 9/16 Now Dips Buy? Reasoning
Wisconsin $115 $159 $175 $99 $99 at gate Weather.
@Rutgers $125 $139 $118 $90 $90 wait. M fans want to go but NJ fans sure as hell won’t.
Illinois (HC) $85 $85 $100 $108 $95 wait. Face right now.
@MSU $225 $268 $256 $234 $234 wait. Dropped $20 for the first loss, Indiana is a pick ‘em
Maryland $65 $54 $70 $57 $54 wait Already under face.
@Iowa $85 $151 $195 $189 $175 wait! Beating Grant-less Rutgers 14-7 is actually worse than losing to a I-AA team.
Indiana $65 $40 $55 $57 $55 now. Beat Staee
@OSU $250 $282 $275 $311 $300 wait. Will only be this high if neither team loses. Which…

Ohio State is priced already like it’ll be two undefeated teams, so don’t bother now—football is cruel and Michigan has a top 10 team this week and two still-tough road games.

Illinois will be $50 despite Homecoming unless it’s a gorgeous day and Illinois starts upsetting people. They’ll lose to Nebraska this week and then the price will start to go up for 2 weeks as they face Purdue and Rutgers and their fans start to think about making the trip for the big rivalry game, so if you need like 4 together I’d pick those up for $50 each now.

Michigan State, well, I didn’t see a lot of new tickets hit the market after the loss, which means they’re in wait and see mode, but if they lose at Indiana look for the wheels to fall off. Basketball should start around the time those drop back to the $150 range, and then the world should right itself. Please.

CHEAP TIP

When I was wandering past tailgates I overheard several conversations of “Hey we still have two extra tickets.” One tailgate I hung out at for awhile gave a ticket to the neighboring tailgate for some of their cups. If you’re looking to offload late and don’t want to leave your tailgate, try the barter system.

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

Err

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I do this section for Ticket IQ because they support us and I can usually find something worthwhile. This time, um, I would still wait to buy, but here are two tix on the 10 yard line and in a row relatively close to the exit, which is at Row 72.

These seats do illustrate something though: down is not necessarily good. Last week I went with my nephew (4) and niece (almost 2), and we sat in Row 20 of the End Zone. When they inevitably needed to go, it was a long march back to an exit behind a halftime’s worth of people. My brother and sister-in-law got them out at halftime and didn’t bother to come back. Sitting high of the aisle is a bit on the further away side, but I’ve found I usually end up sliding down to almost the front row of that section by the end of the game. It’s a great spot as the clock is winding down to yell “WHO’S GOT IT BETTER THAN US?”

The real best deal is to download their app and retweet this for them:

Because right now the six people who’ve done so have a 1/6 chance of free tix. We’ll announce a winner tonight—Ralph this is on you—but if you don’t win and still want to get in I’d check the app tomorrow morning. Also I’m sure some people at our tailgate will have extras to sell.

Comments

Hab

September 30th, 2016 at 1:13 PM ^

Love the service you provide.  But do you really get to say "I told you so" when every factor other than the weather, over which you have no ability to control or predict until days before says this is THE marque home game of the year?

ak47

September 30th, 2016 at 1:21 PM ^

In that case shouldn't the advice always be saturday of the game?  This is also for people who might be traveling in groups and want the beneift of having seats beforehand.  If this game was happening on a sunny day tickets on monday would have been more expensive than the monday before.  

mGrowOld

September 30th, 2016 at 1:35 PM ^

I was planning on coming up this Saturday for my first game since Nebraska, 2014.  Been watching ticket prices closely as they were sky-high all season for this game in particular.  The ticket exchange spreadsheet, for example, had about 10 people looking to buy tickets for Wisconsin on Tuesday and zero looking to sell.

Now weather forecast looks bad, real bad for tomorrow.  I bail on the game (shooting next for Illinois) cause the wife wants NO part of standing in the rain for 8 hours and as much as I want to go, I dont want to deal with consequences of making her do that later.  At the same time there is a surge of sellers now on the ticket exchange and the "best value" on Stubhub has dropped from $115/ticket on Tuesday to $75 right now and falling.

If the weather forecast holds and it's rainy with high winds my guess is you'll be able to get a pretty good seat for $40-50 tomorrow if you wait.  Prices are heading down.

youn2948

September 30th, 2016 at 3:46 PM ^

However now I'm wondering if I'd be better off going to the Iowa game(I live in STL), as trying to find a hotel in A2 area during Homecoming weekend ugh.  Looking at Canton/Brighton areas right now, possibly as far as Novi as I refuse to pay over $150 and won't stay somewhere dirty again.  GF doesn't want to crash at friends/family houses again.

Tickets for the Iowa game though $$$$$.  Hoping Iowa loses again to someone and they stop wanting to go that game but Iowa fans are Iowa fans, it'll stay an expensive ticket I think.

scanner blue

September 30th, 2016 at 5:12 PM ^

 I was almost going to post before the season starts that I would open my house for home games to mgobloggers but got lazy. Old West Side bungalow about 1.2 miles from stadium, 1st floor suite is yours for $60 bucks a night. I'll cook you breakfast before I (CoEng'82) go work the game and if your nice to my wife (LSA '80) she'll drop you off a block from the stadium. Repost with your email if interested.

DCGrad

September 30th, 2016 at 1:21 PM ^

Love the article. Would you wait until Friday to buy Rutgers? I already have the room booked just waiting to buy the tickets. Waiting was definitely the right advice on this one. The cheapest secondary used to be $120 now it's $65. Somewhat ironically, the tickets on the UM sideline are much higher than in the Rutgers sideline.

Seth

September 30th, 2016 at 1:32 PM ^

Not ironically at all. Totally expected.

Yeah I bet that Friday you can find some for pretty cheap, though if there's two for $65 in a section you don't mind I would just go for it for the peace of mind.

stephenrjking

September 30th, 2016 at 2:52 PM ^

If I'm booking a room for a road trip to go to a game, I'm usually willing to spend a bit more early to know that I have tickets. I don't want to get myself into a situation where prices don't do what I want and I have to either pay through the nose or get lousy tickets because I'm already committed.

You'll have more fun traveling, arriving, and relaxing before the game if you already have the tickets in hand.

stephenrjking

September 30th, 2016 at 2:54 PM ^

Aren't we Iowa's highlight home game this year? If the team really collapses, I could see the tickets dropping a bit, and if Michigan loses once or twice the sheen kinda comes off. But if Michigan is undefeated I don't think there's any scenario short of total disaster that keeps Iowa fans from rabidly taking their places that night, hoping for an upset.