Replying to RaceBoarder: I'm guessing you'll be able to buy a ticket for quite a bit less on the street, especially if you only need a single. OK, there's a slight risk of getting a fake ticket doing it that way. A portion of the savings is tied to that slight risk. But especially if you're going to spend a period of hours at Gameday, there should be a reasonable chance to familiarize yourself with the market before making a purchase.
We are, however, in somewhat uncharted waters here. As Priceless notes, this a battle between two legitimately undefeated teams, not a longshot upset bid. And maybe those billboards declaring that Northwestern is Chicago's Big Ten Team have been taken to heart. Maybe.
But on the sellers' side, I'm catching a whiff of the Blackhawks secondary market here. On the buyers' side I'm not sure if there's enough demand to support those prices. To be a little more specific, there's a fair amount of inventory on the market. Some of the tickets are available in large blocks. One party is selling 12 tickets @ $195 a pop. He'll sell any number of ducats between 1 and 12 at that price. Another party offers 20 tickets @ $215 each. Again, they'll sell any number between 1 and 20. Those tickets were bought purely for resale. The typical season ticket holder offers 2 or 4 tickets, and usually won't break up the set.
The Blackhawks "investor" will generally get a good return. Will that be the case here? Again, maybe. But if they're counting on Buckeye fans to pay those prices, I'd say it's an open question at best. An OSU alum based in Chicago likely already has tickets. Same thing for a Columbus-based fan planning a road trip. Buckeye Nation isn't in the habit of waiting to see how the early season goes before making the commitment.
Another factor is that Columbus is hosting the President's Cup (USA vs. World in Golf) next weekend. Now for the rank and file Buckeye Football Fan, the golf event won't be attractive enough to affect any football plans. But for the big money fan, it could. I can easily imagine the well-funded fans partaking in the golf Saturday afternoon at Muirfield Village, then just watching the proceedings from Evanston at home on TV.
So the ultimate question for RaceBoarder is whether the casual fan from Chicago is really ready to embrace the NU Wildcats at $200 a ticket. I'd actually be very interested to know. If you go, please report back. But I suspect there's still a bit of wishful thinking in those billboards I've seen on the Tri-State.
