One Rose Bowl ticket, one trip to remember

The last time the Iowa Hawkeyes saw the inside of Pasadena's Rose Bowl stadium was in 1991, when Tom Clos was a year old.

So when it was announced Dec. 6 that Iowa would make its first Rose Bowl appearance in 25 years, Clos, now 26, knew he had to be there on New Year's Day when Iowa takes on Stanford for the first time.

'I always thought, ‘If they go to the Rose Bowl, I'm going to go,'” said Clos, who graduated from Iowa in 2013. 'Why not? When is this going to happen again?”

But there was one problem: The cheapest Rose Bowl tickets he could find were more than $500.

The lowest price for Rose Bowl tickets just a few days after the matchup was announced was about $560 on StubHub and $500 on Ticketnetwork and TicketCity,

'The tickets got outrageous immediately,” Clos said. 'It was just too much.”

He first tried to get one of the 22,000 tickets provided to the University of Iowa Athletics Department, but with more than 54,000 requests made - and roughly 27,500 of those requests from season ticket holders and I-Club members, who received top priority - his chances were beyond bleak.

Rose Bowl tickets allocated to Stanford didn't last much longer, with the university's athletic department indicating Dec. 14 that, within three days after the matchup was announced, all tickets provided to the school had been sold.

According to a news release, Stanford initially received about 28,000 tickets, but obtained an additional block of about 2,000 tickets from Rose Bowl Game. And alumni received tickets through a lottery system.

So Clos turned his attention to the open market. And sure enough, prices began to drop. Clos snagged a ticket about a week ago for $200.

Prices continued to drop - this week StubHub offered Rose Bowl tickets as low as $140 and TicketCity had tickets as low as $156.

While ticket costs have dropped, the Rose Bowl still is the priciest game in town compared with other high profile bowl games.

According to StubHub, tickets to the College Football Playoff semifinal Orange Bowl game between Clemson and Oklahoma were going for as low as $65 this week. Tickets for the other semifinal game, the Cotton Bowl featuring Michigan State and Alabama, were as low as $24 this week.

So Clos had his ticket, but next came another challenge; He lives in Manhattan and was staring down nearly 2,800 miles between him and Pasadena, Calif.

But with the ticket already paid for, Clos was committed and managed to coordinate a solo trip that may turn out as memorable as the Rose Bowl game itself.

After clocking out from work at 4 p.m. Thursday, Clos will take a 4 1/2 half-hour bus ride to Washington, D.C., and spend the night at his brother's place in nearby Virginia.

At 8:20 a.m. Friday, Clos will catch a direct flight from DC to Los Angeles - estimated arrival of 11:26 a.m. - where a rental car awaits.

Then it's a 40-minute drive to Pasadena for the game.

With thousands of Iowa fans heading to California, Clos said he has no doubt he'll find some friendly faces.

'I'm just going to go there and sort of take it all in,” said Clos, who transferred from Michigan to Iowa in 2010. 'That's the great thing about the school and sort of the reason I've taken such an affection to it, outside of being an alumnus. ... It's such a tightly knit culture. Iowa people are so good.”

After the game, Clos is driving back to Los Angeles International Airport for a 9:30 p.m. flight to New York, estimated arrival of 5:30 a.m.

That's nearly 6,000 miles in less than 24 hours.

'It's going to be something,” Clos said. 'I'm 26, I don't have a family yet, I'm single. I can do this. Let's just do it.”