Columbus Dispatch...
A buyer’s market for Ohio State football tickets
By Tim Feran
August 30, 2011 

If you ever wanted to go to an Ohio State home football game and couldn’t get or afford tickets in the past, this is your year. 

Thanks to months of scandal talk, a relatively ho-hum home schedule and a weak economy, the demand for tickets is way down. Prices are so low that local brokers are offering tickets for below face value. 

According to StubHub, an online ticket broker, the cheapest ticket to the season opener Saturday against Akron is $45, which is below the face value of $75. Season tickets are available online for as low as $675, about the same as you might pay to buy a ticket to a big Michigan game in the past. 

“It’s the worst that I’ve seen it in my 15 years of selling tickets,” said Ryan Forgacs, president of Main Event Ticket Service. “In 2002, when Tressel took us to the national championship, it took Ohio State tickets to new levels. I remember saying, ‘Man, I can’t believe we’re paying that much.’ 

“Now we’ve taken a total swing backward and fallen off the cliff,” Forgacs said. “Even we, as ticket brokers, have tickets for the first game below face value. I can’t remember on a Monday before a home opener ever selling below face value.” 

Ohio State officials wouldn’t comment on what brokers are charging for tickets, but they said there aren’t any more tickets for sale to the public than in past years when there isn’t a headline game early in the season. 

“Single-game tickets are on par with previous years, and we didn’t see any dip overall in season-ticket sales,” said Brett Scarbrough, OSU’s senior director of ticketing. 

However, in an attempt to boost sales, the university did experiment by offering group tickets to current season-ticket holders, donors, sponsors and other groups before tickets went on sale to the public, Scarbrough said. The group tickets weren’t sold at a discount, but Ohio State did offer companies that bought at least 200 tickets a “chalk talk with a coach” as a perk. 

While the weak economy is partly to blame for unsold tickets, it’s not the only reason that about 1,000 tickets were available for each of the first two games of the season as of yesterday morning, several brokers said. 

“Certainly having to let go an arguably hall of fame coach, losing some of our best players, and there’s a question mark about who will be at quarterback — there are still some unknowns,” said Matt Colahan, manager at Tickets Galore. “And then, of course, the NCAA sanctions are kind of looming. And besides that, the home schedule this year is not as strong as we’d like.” 

All those factors have simply led to low fan morale, said Greg Guy, owner of Blue Chip Ticket Bureau. 

“But I guarantee as soon as we win a game or two, it’ll be back to normal,” Guy said. 

Whether or not off-the-field problems are to blame for putting a damper on ticket sales is “hard to say,” said Bill Glenn, senior vice president at the sports marketing firm Marketing Arm. 

“Impacts like that are typically seen over a season versus one or two games. Given this is Ohio State — a program with a storied history, consistent on-field success and so many diehard fans — it’s likely more reflective of the team’s 2011 schedule and the lackluster economy,” he said. 

“But with no disrespect to the schools themselves, this year’s Akron and Toledo teams don’t offer the same level of recognition and excitement as last year’s 12th-ranked Miami team or 2009’s Navy and third-ranked USC.” 

The face value of a ticket is equivalent to its “initial public offering price,” said David M. Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California. 

“Once the market — or in this case, ticket purchasers — take into account developments that affect the team and their own willingness to attend, the price changes.” 

Winning, of course, is always good for the ticket business. 

“Who knows?” Forgacs said. “It’ll be an interesting year. If we go 3-0, the fire will be lit again. You know, there are still going to be 100,000 screaming fans in that stadium. They just won’t have paid as much as normal to get in.” 

Read it at the Columbus Dispatch