BOZEMAN — This weekend marks a historic first for Montana football: the Montana State Bobcats and the Montana Grizzlies will meet in the FCS playoffs for the first time — and not just anywhere in the bracket, but in the semifinals.
For many Montanans, it’s like the Super Bowl. And for fans trying to get into Saturday’s game, tickets aren’t coming cheap.
Montana State freshman Shan, who grew up in Bozeman, knows exactly what this rivalry means.
“I grew up going to Cat-Griz games,” he said. “The energy was really good. The fan base is crazy.”
See how the historic Cat-Griz FCS playoff game is creating a ticket frenzy with prices soaring over $3,000
Shan's right — especially this year, the excitement will be through the roof. But getting a seat won’t be easy.
“I haven’t looked at tickets yet, but I heard they’re pretty expensive,” Shan said.
A quick search on SeatGeek — the official third-party ticketing site for the Bobcats — showed the cheapest available ticket at $582 and the most expensive at $3,711.
Peter Heim, who works for the MSU athletics department, said the school’s official allotment was gone quickly. Ticket requests for donors and season ticket holders opened weeks ago, with that deadline closing Monday night. The remaining tickets sold out Tuesday morning.
“If you support the Bobcat Club and Bobcat athletics — being a football season ticket holder and supporter — you receive football benefits,” Heim said. “That relationship is reciprocated with the opportunity to purchase additional tickets.”
Donors and season ticket holders were able to buy up to eight extra seats.
“With that allocation, we ended up selling all of our tickets,” Heim said.
Other than the University of Montana’s 500-ticket allotment, Montana State sold more than 21,000 tickets. Primary ticket prices through MSU were $125 in the suites.
So why are prices so much higher on resale sites?
“It’s from people who purchase them from us on the primary market, and then they go ahead and find another site — Gametime, Ticketmaster, SeatGeek — and they try to obviously go for a profit on those sites,” Heim said.
He advises fans to be cautious when buying tickets secondhand.
But he adds, “Purchasing off of a partner like SeatGeek, with the integration we have with our ticketing office, we’re able to check validity."
As for Shan, whether or not he makes it into the stadium, he’s already fired up for Saturday.
“I’m really excited for it. I think it should be a great game,” he said. “I have friends who go to Griz, so I’m excited to hopefully beat them. Go Bobcats.”
