AFC Championship: Jets at Colts

It turns out the Indianapolis Colts were staying in our hotel on Saturday night – so much for the poor reviews on tripadvisor.com. Since the AFC Championship Game did not start until 3 pm we had plenty of time to sleep in and then go to brunch. I had picked out Patachou on the Park for brunch. My first pick, City Café, is closed for some reason on Sundays – even this Sunday with a major football game taking place.

Obtaining Tickets
On Saturday morning, I emailed a guy on craigslist.org about his ticket in the upper deck he was offering for $145. I asked for face value and he responded stating that if I did not want to pay $145, the lowest he would accept was $125. I was willing to pay his price but he never emailed me back. Thus, he set my “high price” to pay for the event.

Nicole and I took the hotel shuttle to downtown and it dropped us off within a couple of blocks of Lucas Oil Stadium’s ticket office. Since tickets were available at the box office for the last two Colts game I attended this season (the Patriots at Colts and last Saturday night), I wanted to check the box office to see if tickets were available. I walked to the box office as Nicole walked to the restaurant.

As I waited in line, I noticed a large group (about 10 people) collect their tickets. There were no tickets available when I asked if any singles were available. I immediately asked the group if they had an extra and they acted as though they had one. After about one minute (which feels much longer), they said they did. My first thought was that they were affiliated with the team and would give me a ticket for free. No luck on that. But they were affiliated with the team but had not received a free ticket. Instead, I paid face value ($125) for a ticket on the lower level. Not bad considering this was the AFC Championship game and it would take some work to find a ticket for face value anywhere else.


Pre Game Dining and Shopping
After buying my ticket I could now relax and enjoy a nice brunch with Nicole. Patachou on the Park was a great brunch place. Not only did it serve good food, but it was only a few blocks from Lucas Oil Stadium and the shopping areas in downtown.

After brunch, Nicole and I went sopping at Nordstrom. Since Lucas Oil Stadium is located right downtown you can spend as much time as necessary shopping to make the trip “equal” if necessary.

Tickets Part 2
After spending an hour at Nordstrom I walked to the stadium for the game. As I approached the main scalping corner on W. McCarty St. and S. Capitol Ave. there were quite a few people selling tickets and even more asking for tickets – meaning tickets would probably stay higher than face value. One fan sold his pair ($90 face value per ticket) to a scalper for $150 each. Another guy was asking for $200 for his $110 (face value) ticket. Other scalpers were also asking for much more than face.

The Game
This was the second time I have attend an NFL Championship Game. The first time was three years ago when the Chicago Bears hosted the New Orleans Saints.

The game started out poorly for the Jets as referee Tony Corrente called the Jets the Giants during the coin toss.

However, this did not effect the Jets as they started the game with a bang taking a 17-6 lead with only 2:11 left in the second quarter. At first I thought Rex Ryan may be correct in his prediction that the Jets would win the Super Bowl, but then Peyton Manning took over. After the Jets took their 11-point lead, Manning took less than one minute to score a touchdown at 1:13 left in the first half. This was just the beginning as he also drove for two touchdowns in the second half to score 24 unanswered points and lead the Colts to a 30-17 victory. Peyton Manning broke the NFL postseason record by passing for 300 yards in his seventh postseason game – he was tied with Joe Montana and Kurt Warner.


After the two minute warning in the second half, the ushers finally started checking tickets to enter the section I was sitting in – they did not want fans to attempt to get close to the field during the celebration.

Post Game Dining
After the game, I walked back to the hotel in pouring rain to meet Nicole. The one cab I found would not drive me to such a close destination and the hotel shuttle was not at its stop when I walked by.

After resting for a couple of hours, we took the hotel shuttle back downtown and ate at Harry & Izzy’s which is right next door to St. Elmo Steak House (Peyton Manning is a part owner of the partner restaurants).

NFL in Canada: Jets at Bills

The Buffalo Bills are playing one game per season for five years at Rogers Centre. Since they are playing a consistent game I added Rogers Centre as an NFL stadium I wanted to visit. I have already attended a Toronto Blue Jays (1993) and Toronto Raptors (1996-97) game at Rogers Centre when the stadium was called SkyDome.

Booking Flights
The wife and I had just spent Thanksgiving in central Florida and decided to stay a few days after the long weekend. With that I flew directly from Orlando to Buffalo on Southwest Airlines and planned to fly from Buffalo to Chicago on Friday afternoon after the game. I thought about flying directly to Toronto since I would avoid the two drive from Buffalo to Toronto but the flights were more expensive to fly directly to Toronto even though I needed to rent a car.

Pre Game Dining
By the time I checked into my hostel and started looking for a place to eat dinner it was 5 pm. There were dozens of restaurants and bars to choose from a few blocks north of Rogers Centre. I wanted to eat at Wayne Gretzky’s Restaurant but it was incredibly crowded. Instead I ate at Fox and Fiddle (located at 106 John Street) since they had a Thursday night dinner special and it was close to where I was staying.

After dinner I walked around Rogers Centre (about 0.5 miles from the restaurant) to check out the secondary ticket market and see if there were any bars closer to the stadium.

The closest restaurant I found to Rogers Centre was St. Louis Bar and Grill (located at 313 Bremner Blvd.). At the restaurant I met two Jets fans from New York City who drove to Toronto for the game.

Obtaining Tickets
One of the guys I met at St. Louis Bar and Grill had the same ticket strategy as me. He wanted to buy a cheap ticket right before the game started – his goal was to pay $50 each for lower level tickets. Lower level seats had a face value of $275. However, his logic was flawed.

1) We needed to buy four tickets if we were to sit together. If an individual scalper has a dozen or two tickets then getting four together for a low price is not difficult. Although there were a lot of scalpers, most did not have more than six tickets or so – meaning they would be more difficult to negotiate with.
2) There were a lot of other fans who wanted to buy tickets on the secondary market rather than pay $110 or $165 for upper deck seats from the box office – meaning tickets on the secondary market were more expensive and the scalpers would hold out to get the highest price they could.

Remember that every game is different for the secondary ticket market even at the same stadium. Do not expect to pay $20 for an NFL game just because you traditionally have in the past.

Last night most scalpers wanted $200 for their lower level seats (face value $275). That was more than any of us were willing to pay. They all upped their budget to $100 for lower level seats but I was becoming impatient with the strategy. At least my theory still holds true that you can save money by buying tickets on the secondary market rather than at the box office. You just not save as much money as you would like.

Finally, I decided to go alone as I found a guy who had a VIP seat - $495 face value. I was not sure where the VIP section was but the ticket did have a special entrance. I was hoping it was a luxury box. I offered him $100 for the ticket but he declined. The scalper next to me offered him $150 which did not work well for my negotiation. We finally settled on $130 for the ticket (in which I paid him $110 Canadian and $20 US since I did not take much money out of the ATM since I never thought I would pay that much for a ticket).

My Seat
My seat was not in a luxury box but it was a great seat. Row 25 at the 40 yard line in the VIP section. I thought VIP might get me something, but it was just a good seat in a “special area.” Special area defined as we had our own concession stand to buy food and drinks.

However, my ticket drama did not stop there. When I showed up the guys who I sat with asked me how I got the ticket. They had given the ticket to a contact of theirs (“Dave”) who is the same guy I bought it from. Once I told them I bought the ticket they told me the story of why they gave “Dave” the ticket and were angry that he ended up selling it. Note here: If somebody you know gives you a ticket do not sell it. If you cannot use it, tell your contact you cannot use the ticket and give it back. If worse comes to worse, give the ticket away – do not sell it. I doubt “Dave” will be receiving any tickets from these guys in the future.

The Game
The game was not as exciting as buying my ticket experience as the Jets defeated the Bills 19-13. Each team scored one touchdown and punted seven times.

Post Game
After the game I walked back to my hostel and stopped at Adelaide Street Pub since it was one block away from where I was staying.