Fans line up outside Ohio Stadium before Ohio State’s game against Ohio University on Sept. 13. Credit: Sandra Fu | Managing Photo Editor
Ticket prices for Saturday’s Big Ten rivalry matchup between unranked Penn State and No. 1 Ohio State have dropped below $100 since late September.
Once one of college football’s hottest tickets, the matchup lost its luster as then-No. 2 Penn State unraveled. The Nittany Lions lost four straight interconference games, quarterback Drew Allar to injury and eventually bought out head coach James Franklin.
One Facebook user who bought tickets in Section 34B on Oct. 3 for $248 wrote that he couldn’t recoup even half of what he paid on the resale market. For comparison, the get-in price on the Thursday before the 2023 Penn State–Ohio State game was $237.
“[I] can’t even get it to sell for $130 anymore,” he wrote.
Prices climbed early in the season, rising from $388 on Aug. 31 to $485 after Penn State’s narrow loss to Oregon, but the team’s collapse caused ticket sales to plummet to $88 on Oct. 30, according to TicketData.com.
After falling to then-0-4 UCLA on Oct. 4, prices dropped to $443. Following the upset by Northwestern, which included Allar’s season-ending injury and the firing of Franklin the next day, prices fell further to $336.
On Oct. 18, Penn State lost 25-24 to Iowa while Ohio State remained one of the few undefeated programs left in college football, driving prices even lower.
An Ohio State student who commented on an Instagram post by The Lantern wrote that she bought her ticket for $52, a price well below the market average.
Even with the sharp decline in prices, the Ohio State Ticket Office said in an emailed statement that Ohio Stadium is still expected to be nearly sold out.
“The Ohio State Department of Athletics is looking forward to another crowd in excess of 100,000 fans Saturday when the No. 1 Buckeyes host Penn State at noon,” the office said.
