Hunting big-game tickets has its dangers at Kinnick

An area ticket-broker crystallized it eloquently.

“This game, there just aren't enough tickets.”

That was Kirk Schmidt of Oxford, who has been in the ticket biz for 25 years. He's spent a lot of game days outside Kinnick Stadium and other sports venues. He'll be a busy man this week in the days and hours before Saturday night's Michigan-Iowa football affair.

No, there aren't enough tickets. At Fansnap.com, a search engine of about 50 online ticket brokers, the average price Tuesday afternoon for a Michigan-Iowa ticket was $330. That covered 391 listings.

The face value for single-game seats is a paltry $70.

“This is pretty much our Big Ten game of the year,” said Fansnap's Nichole Rozendaal. “Right now the average for the Iowa-Ohio State game (Nov. 14) is only $206.”

Yet, Saturday's toughest ticket in the nation is elsewhere. It's Florida-LSU in Baton Rouge with an average of $550 a shot.

The low end Tuesday for Michigan-Iowa was a student-section sideline seat for $131. The high end was $715 (at RazorGator.com) for an outdoor club seat. That includes $65 for handling. A parking pass is part of the, uh, deal.

“I have looked on Craigslist, eBay, Facebook, and can't find anything for less than $175 for one ticket,” David King e-mailed me. He is an Iowa graduate who is a vice president of a realty company in Los Angeles.

“I am going to risk it and try to get a cheaper one from a scalper or a ticket holder who drank too much during the pregame,” King said. “I just hope the game ticket doesn't cost more than my plane ticket.”

Schmidt sounded a warning siren for those planning to seek tickets Saturday outside Kinnick Stadium. It's common sense stuff, but some folks leave their common sense at home when they're trying to gain entrance to a big event.

Look at the tickets. Look at the date on the tickets. Look at the name of the visiting team on the tickets.

Look at the tickets again.

About 2,600 seats went unsold for Arkansas State-Iowa last Saturday. It was a buyer's market, and many got bought for dirt-cheap and then weren't used. Why? Because the color and look of the Arkansas State tickets were similar to those for the Michigan game.

Those tickets will float around Iowa City this weekend, with their owners looking for suckers to pay a couple hundred bucks for them.

Many people got burned by people selling counterfeit tickets for the Ohio State-Iowa night game in 2006. A few arrests were made, and some out-of-staters got severe prison sentences. But most of the crooks got away with the crimes.

“My biggest suggestion for people paying that kind of money for a ticket,” Schmidt said, “is to have the seller walk you to the gate and have the ticket scanned before you exchange money.”

Scalpers could have gotten even more for Saturday's game had Michigan defeated Michigan State last Saturday.

“If Michigan would have been undefeated,” Schmidt said, “their people would have come here in droves.

“There are only two institutions in the nation with followings as good as Michigan. That's Texas with all their old-money alums, and Ohio State. Those two and Michigan pay the highest prices for tickets when their teams are doing well.”

A man no one in the Gazette sports department knew dropped in on us Tuesday just to suggest Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi take off and run a little bit more to open the defenses for the passing game. (Kirk Ferentz and Ken O'Keefe surely appreciate the advice.)

When I asked the Hawkeye fan of decades if he would consider selling his ticket to Saturday's game for $250, his reaction was of disbelief, as if he had been asked to sell one of his arms.

Michigan-Iowa tickets truly are priceless to some. Others have a number in mind. It starts at sky-high. Then it goes up.