Penn State vs Notre Dame, toughest ticket in football?

Terry O'Keefe · Jul 3, 2006

It might be, a quick look at various "ticket" agencies showed that most of the big games were toping out at around 1100/1200$ for a good seat. Games like Texas/Ohio State, Texas/OU, Ohio State/Penn State, Notre Dame vs Michigan, etc. But the Penn State vs ND game is toping out at around 1900$. Pretty Amazing. Penn Staters are supposedly trying to pull a Nebraska on the Irish and "White Out" Notre Dame Stadium. I don't think it'll happen on Charlies watch!!

Nittany Lion fans demand more than Notre Dame's supply
By Jeff Rice
jrice@centredaily.com
It’s one tough ticket in South Bend — the toughest, in fact, in the history of the Golden Dome.

Tickets to the Penn State-Notre Dame football game on Sept. 9 in Notre Dame Stadium were in unprecedented demand for both schools.

And the fans wearing blue and white that day will be some of the Nittany Lion Club’s most accomplished and longest-tenured donors.

Penn State was allotted 5,000 visitors’ tickets to the game. Demand for those tickets was so high that the Nittany Lion Club — the Penn State fundraising group whose members have first crack at all tickets — set the cutoff at 822 points.

To put that into perspective, cutoff for the 4,000 visitors’ seats Penn State received for the Sept. 23 game at Ohio State — another heavily anticipated game — is 338 points. The cutoffs for games at Minnesota, Purdue and Wisconsin are substantially lower.

“The immediate reaction of fans to the high point total that’s required for Notre Dame tickets is, ‘How can that possibly be? We’ve never seen anything like that,’” said Penn State associate athletic director Greg Myford. “And they’re right — we’ve never seen anything like that.”

The reasons are simple. First, granting 5,000 seats to visiting schools is standard procedure at Notre Dame, where Notre Dame Stadium seats more than 80,000. Given Penn State’s massive base of season ticket holders (now up to 90,000) and its propensity to travel, those seats were bound to go quickly.

Second, the re-emergence of both programs makes the early-season matchup appealing for any fans of college football. The Nittany Lions return 11 starters from a team that went 11-1 and earned a No. 3 BCS ranking last year; the Fighting Irish 13 starters from a team that finished 9-3 and sixth in the BCS.

The buzz in South Bend has been such that four of the 10 most requested home games in Notre Dame history will be played this fall.

According to the school’s sports information office, Notre Dame received 66,670 ticket requests for the game — more than 7,300 more than the previous high, the West Virginia game of 2001. The Irish’s Sept. 16 game against Michigan received 61,631 requests.

The university expects to mail refunds totaling more than $11.7 million — twice the total from the year before — to unsuccessful participants in its annual ticket lottery, the results of which will be announced July 12.

The demand for Penn State tickets — home or away — has been no less feverish. The university grants ticket priority first to Nittany Lion club members, then alumni, then the general public. The online alumni sale for single-game tickets began at 10 a.m. Friday. By 10:30, the system had shut down and been restarted, and more than 5,000 tickets had been sold.

The Notre Dame tickets never made it past NLC members.

“The folks that have been with the Nittany Lion Club the longest and have the highest point totals have really taken full advantage of being able to order tickets, so obviously that lifts the total point level dramatically,” Myford said. “It’s unfortunate that we can’t get more tickets to more people, but it is falling within the way we’ve always done things and the way we’ll continue to do things on the Nittany Lion Club point system.”

Nittany Lion fans upset about the prospect of watching the game from home can take some solace in the fact that when Notre Dame visits Beaver Stadium next September, Fighting Irish fans will receive 5,000 seats as well.

“They’re a year away from facing much the same dilemma,” said Myford, smiling.
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Penn State vs Notre Dame

JO'Co · Jul 4, 2006

I read somewhere that UCLA-Notre Dame is the 10th most requested ticket. I sure hope you guys can find some. This looks like a tough ticket to find...

Terry O'Keefe · Jul 4, 2006

Interest in ND games is an all-time high this year! Charlie, TommyZ, The Shark and Quinn are costing us all a lot of money!!

Tim Gentry · Jul 4, 2006

ND/Penn St

<r>Terry, 
 
You have to admit, after what we have been thru the over the past 8 or 9 seasons, having to scramble for or pay more for ND tickets is a great problem to have. With any luck, tickets will get harder to come by!! 
 
Go Irish!! 
<E>8)</E></r>

gipper · Jul 4, 2006

ND has already sent out letters to alums explaining the ticket crunch this year. They're trying to soften the blow to alums who expect something for their donations. The PSU game is the greatest demand home game ND has ever had and the Mich. game is second.
(and to think it all started on the "saddest day" of Monk's life.)

ndfan77 · Jul 5, 2006

Companies I hear getting tix easier too. I'm going to the UCLA game b/c friends company received them but no one really wanted them except my friend.

Tix prices are easy to pay for, just load up on ND...ha ha Zibby paid for my Tenn game last year.

Anyone hear anything about pep rallies? Tenn game was sold out early, but then let us right in. So with bigger crowds now, wondering if they are putting a plan into effect before the season.

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Penn State vs Notre Dame, toughest ticket in football?

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