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Tickets for Michigan? Be rich, and be careful(Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Oct. 30--Andrew Davis wants to be in Phoenix on Jan. 8 with the Buckeyes for the national championship game so badly that he's selling his OSU-Michigan ticket to pay for his trip west. Now the Buckeyes just have to win out, and demand for tickets has to remain high. Neither is guaranteed. "I wouldn't just sell it for the money," Davis said after upgrading his student ticket to general admission Wednesday. That involved paying the difference between the $29 student ticket and the $59 general admission, which will allow Davis' buyer to enter Ohio Stadium without having to show a student ID That also, theoretically, makes his ticket more valuable to sell. Davis, a second-year graduate pharmaceutical student, isn't the only one willing to forgo the The Game to make a little money. On Friday, more than three weeks before the Nov. 18 kickoff, eBay had more than 600 listings for tickets to the game. According to eBay Marketplace Research, a set of two tickets sold for an average of $1,803 last week. Four in Section 15A sold for $4,050, two in Section 27 AA for $2,100, two in Section 7B for $1,525, and two in Section 25C for $1,448. Greg Guy, owner of Blue Chip Ticket Bureau in Columbus, said he's selling tickets for between $750 and $1,500 each, about twice what they went for in 2002 when Ohio State played Michigan at home before going on to win the national championship. Tickets for the Michigan contest are by far the most expensive OSU home game Guy has ever seen. With such high demand, counterfeit tickets are likely to pop up, said Bill Jones, senior director of ticketing and premium seating at Ohio State. Jones said he already has seen fakes on the Internet. "I have seen some pretty doggone good duplicates," he said. Jones said the university does not actively look for phony tickets, but in one instance he received an e-mail from someone considering buying tickets to the Michigan game. The questioner included the eBay listing and wanted to know whether the tickets were authentic. After looking at the listing, Jones said it was clear the photo, which showed four tickets with consecutive seat numbers, had been doctored. The ticket holder's account number was visible on the tickets in the photo, so Jones looked it up and found the person owned just two tickets. The next two seats in the row, which were shown in the photo, belonged to a different account. The tickets in the photo, though, all showed the same account number. Jones said he warned the potential buyer to steer clear of the purchase, then placed a call to the ticket holder whose account number was being used. University officials have yet to see fake tickets at Ohio Stadium this year, but in 2002, 60 fake tickets were sold for the game against Michigan. Two Philadelphia men pleaded guilty to trademark infringement after police found them with 44 of the fakes. Counterfeits also surfaced when the Buckeyes played at Iowa this year. There, more than 400 people were turned away because they had purchased fake tickets. Paula Jantz, assistant athletics director at Iowa, said some of the fakes were poor reproductions with smeared ink. Others were of high quality, though, and the work of professional counterfeiters, she said. Eventually, three people were arrested for selling the counterfeits, Jantz said. Ohio State doesn't like to see ticket holders selling their seats, and Jones said anyone buying tickets from a scalper or online is taking a chance. Still, he said, buyers can protect themselves by looking for two things when purchasing a ticket. First, the ticket should be outlined in silver foil, with the Ohio State logo running across the picture in red foil. Second, the company that makes the tickets has a watermark on the back, an oval with the initials WW&L. Making the transaction in person, which many sellers on eBay offer to do, lends some security as well. "I think it's a lot easier to tell if they're real if you have them in your hands," Jones said. It's harder to spot fakes online, but Gary Lawson, who has been buying and selling sporting-event tickets on eBay for nine years, said there are red flags to look for. Any eBay seller who says, "Don't bid. Contact me directly," is likely trying to get you to send them money outside of eBay's system, Lawson said. They will ask you to make a wire transfer using Western Union in order to pay for the tickets, which, he said, you will never see. "If you do that, you are flat-out screwed," said Lawson, who has four sets of tickets to the game for sale on eBay. Lawson also said to avoid prices that seem too good to be true. "If that price is so good," he said, "why do they never sell out of tickets? " Those willing to wait will get a better deal, Lawson and Guy said. Guy said the marketplace has become saturated with tickets, and he thinks prices ultimately will fall to under $500 per ticket. [email protected] Copyright (c) 2006, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |