Skipper

Definitely agreed with this. Texas/Michigan will be 2005 Rose Bowl except playing out online instead of around the stadium. Will be fascinating to watch and painful to pull the trigger.

I have zero problem with it. Nobody selling tix is even remotely recouping what they donated to be at the front of the line. With our fickle fan base, home games typically resale at a steep discount for season ticket holders with extras so they lose money on those regularly. I didn't make cut for the sugar bowl but would be trying to flip shitty uppers to help finance better seats if I did. I think people buying need to have some patience. I'll be a bit surprised if "get in" price isn't too much above face in a couple of weeks. The more team allotted tickets that get added to the resale inventory the better for those loooking.

I made those purchases and I knew what they cost. My balance was about 25% higher than I expected because of how insane pricing for everything else is right now. So in the context of a chart reflecting peak credit card balances, it just reminded me of the exact conversation I had last night (without seeing the chart) that I don't see how this doesn't all blow up in the first half of '24. My prediction is one last big consumer spending push this quarter and then a big slowdown into first half of next year with a noticeable bump on delinquencies on cards, car payments, etc.

For Big 12 champ tix I had good seats but purchased around 9PM Friday night before game for about a 60 or 70% discount of what the same seats were selling for the Monday prior. I'm hoping for a similar experience with the Sugar Bowl but not quite as confident we will see the same drop.

Just had a similar conversation with my wife. I always pay off card monthly but not sure I've ever had a higher current balance than when I logged in yesterday to make the payment. Granted there are extenuating circumstances (Big 12 champ tix, Sugar Bowl trip flight and hotel prepaid, refundable flight/hotel to Houston for championship game) on top of all of the typical Christmas related charges, but still, it was a bit shocking and I did a double take. It's just crazy how expensive everything is. I've got reserves to absorb it but I don't know how people living paycheck to paycheck or "budgeting" based on prior spending are handling it. The chart above is not surprising at all. Feel like this all has to come crashing down at some point in '24 but I've been saying that this entire year so who knows.

Schools were only allocated 26K total tickets (out of ~77K capacity) so neither. Schools will each have their allotment in sections on their sideline. Texas is visitor. But pretty much everything for sale currently are the sections that will be mix of Texas, UW and neutral (largely sponsor/corporate/local tix that are on the market)

Interesting. My buddy that was right on the edge moved down like 400 spots from where he was when he submitted his request (without additional donations)

What I'm hearing is that your ranking in this range may have changed materially based on people that made supplemental donations at time of purchase (i.e., check your rank again and you likely dropped). I think I dropped some but wasn't really that close to the cutoff so didn't pay much attention to it. But it's all the more reason to just give your money to Texas One Fund where the funds will actually be used to enhance the program instead of administrative bloat that is the LHF.

It may mean the broker is short selling them to you. I wouldn't be worried about getting in with similar or better seats but they are betting market cools and will be able to buy the tickets to be delivered to you for cheaper.

Will the VIP/open bar be separated at all from the regular entry? May be splits in our group between drinkers that are going to take advantage of the open bar and those that may only have 1 or 2 pregame.

Definitely underperforming but have played a lot of games. Obviously going to be stretches like this every year and hopefully they will come out of it. Our defense is still garbage and not sure that can be fixed but Otter has looked like a below average goalie his last several starts. I sit close to the goal visitors shoot 2X and body language after he was letting in goals on Saturday sucked. Didn't seem like he gave a shit but could say the same for the entire team. Almost like they all went on a long road trip, went out Friday night and came to work hungover.

What time is the party getting started? And what would be the open bar window?

It's gotten mixed reviews on here but I've had 2 (out of 2) great lunches at Luke. That is one of my 12/31 dinner reservations. I'm still hoping by a miracle Commander's or something else I had on notify (Herbsaint I think) pops up but if it doesn't I won't hesitate going there. Have not been to the other 2. FYI - we have a couple of reservations 1/1 for St. John we may be cancelling. Going to talk to them this week and see if they are able to accommodate but I think we may have more people coming than seats. I had brunch there previously (based on a rec in this thread) and it was great. We separately have Arnaud 1/1 and I know they have room for us - I just have not eaten there and have heard mixed reviews.

Took my kid to the game yesterday. I'm glad he still had fun just being there because that was an absolute dogshit performance. Just pathetic across the board to show up and play like that in a big game.

Never walked in a second line have you?

I love a Bourbon St. bar crawl pregame (did this for 03 final four and last sugar bowl) but may try to squeeze this in as well. Looks great. I know some friends I'll be meeting up with are making the sad choice of bringing their kids to NOLA. Will minors be allowed entry (presumably via the $100 ticket?). Appreciate the effort getting this set up and everything else you do for NIL.

This. I like my seats and like having them. But living in Dallas with young kids I can't make half the games and have generally lost my ass selling tix over the last decade when I can't make it. That may change next year with a better home schedule, but even this year with a top 10 team, I had no takers on here for BYU well below face (35YL seats) and ended up selling on seatgeak night before game netting like $60 each or something. To be clear, I didn't get Sugar Bowl tix (i donate my extra $$ to Texas One, not to the fucking LHF seating consequences be damned) but there is going to be a lot of bitching when foundation members list these seats in a week or so. The flip side of that is every person listing seats has also generally lost their ass on resale because we have pretty big fair weather fan base. So I personally don't begrudge any foundation member trying to make a profit. If I would have gotten seats, i absolutely would have tried to flip them for some profit and roll that into offsetting price of better seats on the secondary market.

That's what's screwed up in this entire thing. The cutoff was so high that you will end up having a lot of high net worth donors get shitty seats from the UT allotment. They will have the means and desire to pay substantially more for better seats. So those tix will just end up on the secondary market to be purchased at a markup by smaller donors that just want to get in the stadium. Obviously the biggest issue here is the allotment. It's an absolute joke that the schools are only getting a combined 26,000 seats with 50K+ going to sponsors or otherwise to the "public" (i.e., purchased by large brokers) over the summer. Beyond ridiculous. Schools absolutely should get a larger allotment with significantly more premium seats included.

I don't think the whole Sexton thing Liucci is talking about is that uncommon but also don't think it's the way Liucci is framing it (i.e., Jimbo was that lazy). No coach is just letting Sexton make hires. But I think if a coach is potentially looking to make a move up or out, that word gets to Sexton who then feeds it to HC's needing to make hires. I think this is moreso at the coordinator level where Sexton can act as a conduit. Particularly when he is almost inevitably repping both sides.

I mean you can't help them trying to fund raise off of this. These years are few and far between. It's just damn shame we couldn't get Texas One Fund donations treated the same as LHF donations as we all thought would be the case. Even though that could end up screwing me on tickets this year, I'll still give bare minimum to LHF and the rest to Texas One Fund. Winning is more important. Hopefully that change gets pushed through in the future.

Might be same guy I'm thinking of that runs a brokerage. Can't remember if I knew him from Shaggy or through someone IRL. It all blurs.

Absolutely. Schools are getting a cut. Also, I have zero doubt that the large volume brokers aren't paying anywhere remotely close to the percentage fee you and I pay when we sell tickets. It's all absolutely rigged against the consumer. Including full blown collusion among the large ticket brokers that hold a big chunk of inventory when setting prices (i.e., there was absolutely zero reason for the Big 12 market to stay as high as it did for as long as it did with the massive amount of inventory available but for ticket brokers colluding to maintain prices high until later in day Friday to take advantage of anxious fans not wanting to leave for Dallas without tickets). I wish Patrick Ryan still posted on this site to provide insight but given he's in the business I'm sure he's involved with the same shitty practices trying to maximize profit. It's all bullshit. Was such a better system just haggling outside the stadium back in the day. That was a real "market" instead of the rigged system we have now.

You can't beat Acme or Felix for casual. Across the street from each other and no reservations. Just gauge the line and get in when it doesn't look bad. Both are great. I had a quick pregame meal at the bar at Felix right before making the walk to Superdome last time we were in Sugar Bowl and will probably do the same. Bourbon Street itself will be phenomenal on gameday. It will be packed with fans in town for the game so not the typical scene. Two of my favorite pre-game afternoon drinking days were '03 Final Four and '19 Sugar Bowl. Just a great, unique scene. As for classier bars, we always stay at the Monteleone (and doing so again) and will spend a lot of time in the Carousel bar there. It's great regardless whether you luck into an actual "seat" on the carousel. Also, take your wife over to Roosevelt Hotel to check out the Christmas decorations (they go way over the top and pretty impressive) and grab a drink at the Sazerac Bar. I bet we try to grab a pre-dinner drink there on NYE.

Here is the coaching history of these guys. OL guy may be a decent coach but has been a midwest guy his entire career. DB guy has been a position coach a grand total of 3 seasons (2 at DB). Cushing: 2022-pres. – Duke (Run Game Coordinator/Offensive Line) 2019-21 – Eastern Illinois (Head Coach) 2012-18 – Northwestern (Offensive Line) 2009-11 – Northwestern (Offensive Line/Recruiting Coordinator) 2008 – Northwestern (Superbacks/Recruiting Coordinator) 2005-07 – Northwestern (Tight Ends/H-Backs) 2004 – Northwestern (Graduate Assistant/Offensive Line) 2003 – La Verne (Offensive Line) 2002 – La Verne (Tight Ends) Ishmael Aristide 2022-pres. – Duke (Cornerbacks) 2021 – Miami (Strikers/Outside Linebackers) 2019-20 – Texas A&M (Senior Defensive Analyst/Secondary Assistant) 2017-18 – Ole Miss (Senior Defensive Analyst/Secondary Assistant) 2016 – Auburn (Graduate Assistant/Defense)

Not naming any names here, but seems like it could be bad timing for any school out there that still has $75MM+ committed to a former coach.