Looking for Rose Bowl tickets? Good luck

IOWA CITY - If you already haven't snagged tickets to Iowa's Rose Bowl matchup with Stanford, you may be out of luck.

To say tickets went fast for Iowa's Jan. 1 game in Pasadena, Calif., would be an understatement.

Season ticket holders and I-Club members - who get first priority, with others being placed on a waiting list - still can request tickets, ranging from $150 to $185, from the University of Iowa Athletics Department until 5 p.m. Thursday.

However, Pam Finke, UI Athletics ticket manager, said the office - which has been allotted 22,000 tickets for the game - had received close to 25,000 requests for tickets as of noon Wednesday.

Finke said on Monday those who receive tickets will be notified, and the department will know if they will be able to obtain any additional tickets to sell.

'I don't know if we'll get any more,” she said, adding that it's safe to say there is considerable hype surrounding this game. The Rose Bowl 'is kind of its own animal.”

On Tuesday, a limited supply of $150 tickets made available on Ticketmaster from the Rose Bowl Game organization sold out within a matter of minutes.

On Monday, less than 24 hours after Iowa's place in the Rose Bowl was announced, officials with the UI Alumni Association said they already had sold all available travel packages.

The association's land-and-air bowl package - for roughly $3,900 - includes a charter flight, four nights in a top-end hotel, a ticket to the game and travel to and from the airport, hotel and stadium.

The organizations expects to send between 1,700 and 2,000 people to Pasadena on travel packages.

With tickets becoming more difficult to come by, officials with the Iowa Better Business Bureau warn those still looking to snag tickets to be wary of potential scams.

In an email, bureau director Barbara Green cautioned people to be aware of claims on websites such Craigslist that purport to offer great deals on Rose Bowl tickets.

'The stands will be filled with black and gold. It would be terrible if someone paid thousands of dollars to go and then found that they have a counterfeit ticket,” Green said. 'Even though you may be excited, be alert to scams.”