This weekend’s Maryland-Wisconsin basketball game might be the best local sporting event of the week: the two hottest teams in the Big Ten, meeting in prime time, on a Saturday night, with March approaching and college basketball ready to take center stage. That’s why tickets on the secondary market start at $90, and why Maryland employees are already throwing up their hands when asked if they have any extras.
So how did 21 Terps fans land tickets to the game for a face-value price of $8.33? They bet on the Terps, and they won.
Maryland this fall sold out its allotment of basketball season tickets for the first time in a decade, but that doesn’t mean every single ticket was spoken for. Xfinity Center’s quirky architecture means many rows in the upper-level corners have an odd number of seats. But most people buying season tickets want either two or four seats, which means a scattering of single seats remained unspoken for even when season tickets are “sold out.” And that prompted the Maryland ticket office, for the first time, to offer a “Golden Ticket” promotion.
Fans who simply had to see the Maryland-Georgetown game in College Park earlier this season could buy a single seat from the ticket office for $150. That was probably $50 more than they would have paid on the secondary market, but it came with a promise: as long as Maryland kept winning at home, the ticket would still work.
The seats in question would have cost either $575 or $325 for a season package, depending on the section. If the Terps lost to the Hoyas, the tickets would disappear, and the money would have been a waste. A decent home winning streak would turn it into a decent deal. And if the Terps lived up to their preseason hype? Well, the 21 people who jumped on this offer would possibly see an entire home slate for less than half the regular price, as long as they didn’t mind sitting by themselves. And if you look at Maryland’s home record, you might notice a “0” in the loss column.
“The ones who purchased them have obviously gotten a really good deal,” said Matt Monroe, the school’s associate athletic director for ticket sales and operations. “Hopefully we win the next three games and they can get the entire season.”
So now meet Bryan Borucki, a 22-year old who received a Terrapin Club membership from his father after graduating last spring. He looked into season tickets, but decided they were too expensive for his first year in the real world. He was getting ready to give up when the ticket agent mentioned this new offer.
“It stopped me in my tracks,” Borucki said. “I was like, ‘I have to do this.’ “
Bryan called his father, and Dave Borucki invested in a Golden Ticket of his own. Their seats are a few sections away from each other, but they’re still kind of going to games together. Dave even managed to get an aisle seat, and as luck would have it, one of his high school pals bought seats in his section.
Of course, as the Terps trailed Georgetown throughout much of that November home game, things seemed sort of bleak for the Golden Ticketers.
“My son was texting me during the first half: ‘We may be one and done,’ ” Dave said. “It puts a whole different perspective on the game, I’ll tell you that much.”
“I was kind of freaking out,” Bryan confirmed. “I have two groups of people who sit on each side of me, and they were giving me weird looks.”
But the Terps pulled that game out, and the Golden Tickets remained intact. There have been other close calls: against Rider and Penn State, against Iowa and Purdue. (“I always kind of prepare for the worst,” Bryan joked.) But the Terps still haven’t lost. They’re 14-0 at home with a 27-game home win streak — the longest in the Big Ten and tied for the fourth-longest in the country. That’s why this week — like after every previous home win — Maryland e-mailed the 21 lucky fans their next ticket.
Maryland isn’t the first school to make such an offer; Minnesota got a surge of national publicity in 2012 by doing the same thing with its Big Ten home games. For the Terps, though, this isn’t really about making money or capturing attention.
“At the end of the day, we’re going to be left with these single seats, and they’re difficult to sell, because you don’t find a lot of people buying full season tickets and just coming by themselves,” Monroe said. “The revenue’s minimal either way. But the good thing is, hopefully they’ve had a really good experience, and next year they could become full season ticket holders. For me, that’s kind of the benefit.”
I can’t speak for the entire 21-person group, but I asked the Boruckis whether they’ll be back. Indeed, they might one day become full-season plan holders. But to be honest, they’d rather just buy another Golden Ticket and hope for the best.
“I already told them, if you do it again, I want in,” said Dave Borucki. “Whoever thought of it is a genius.”
“I’m pretty excited to go the whole way. A lot of my friends know about it and they’re just riding the wave: you still have your ticket! you still have your ticket!” his son added. “It’s obviously been pretty awesome.”
(Via Jesse)
