IU fans let neither money nor distance keep them from Big Ten game
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Kathy Sherman’s walk down Illinois Street to Lucas Oil Stadium to the Big Ten championship was nothing compared to the 500 miles she and her husband drove to make the game.
Sherman, a Ball State University alum and Indiana native, traveled from her home in Marietta, Georgia, to watch IU compete Dec. 6 for its first conference title ever against the Ohio State University Buckeyes. Though she and her husband don’t have IU ties, she said a win for the Hoosiers counts as a win for the whole state.
“It’s our Indiana heritage that’s brought us back for this,” Sherman said. “This is history in the making.”
Lengthy travel times, sky-high ticket prices and a crowded downtown Indianapolis didn’t deter IU and Ohio State fans from getting to Lucas Oil to watch their teams duke it out Saturday. Many fans said they wouldn’t miss their team’s chance to punctuate a perfect run with a conference title.
“We’re one of few people on Earth who get to experience a Big Ten championship for Indiana University,” Matt Ostrega, an IU grad and Elkhart resident, said. “This will go down in history as one of the greatest sporting events ever.”
Ostrega purchased his tickets at “face value,” he said, but his trip south still required a hotel for the night. The money and the travel were well worth it, he said, as IU football’s staggering turnaround under head coach Curt Cignetti has gifted him a lifetime’s worth of unforgettable moments.
“Life is all about memories and experiences,” Ostrega said. “As an alum, this is an incredible, galvanizing event.”
Steve and Caryl Auslander, Carmel residents and IU grads who met on campus, had a good feeling about the Hoosiers and purchased tickets in early November. The Auslanders double-dipped Saturday, catching both the IU men’s basketball game against the University of Louisville at Gainbridge Fieldhouse and the title football game at Lucas Oil.
A double-header in their backyard, the couple said, was too good to pass up.
“For us to see both the basketball team and the football team in the greatest sports capital in the country,” Caryl Auslander said, “it’s just so special for us.”
Fans on the brisk, purposeful walk to the stadium weren’t always eager to pause and divulge the financial breakdown of their itinerary, but those who did share varied in what they paid for a seat.
Some had the hunch that IU or Ohio State would go all the way months ago and snagged tickets during the original sale, paying anywhere from $100 to $300 apiece. Others like Jordan G. (who declined to give his last name) forked over thousands: His ticket cost $1,250, then there was the flight from New York and an AirBnB in town that he split with three of his friends.
Tickets to the red-hot Big Ten championship lit up the resale market, with prices on StubHub ranging anywhere from $700 to more than $2,000 hours before the game. Rachel Wisinski, a Chicago resident and IU alum, shelled out just under $2,000 for a pair of tickets from StubHub at the last minute.
Wisinski and her father lost their original tickets in the same way that eight other IU fans did days before kickoff: StubHub voided them. She’s not clear exactly what happened to the tickets she purchased, but she knows that they were in her Apple Wallet one minute and gone the next.
Undeterred, Wisinski pivoted to Ticketmaster to search for seats. She’d already booked her hotel and secured tickets to Saturday afternoon’s IU versus Louisville men’s basketball game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, and she was willing to pay top dollar to see the trip through.
“What we had to do to get here was whatever,” Wisinski said. “We were going to come to the game no matter what.”
Contact IndyStar Pop Culture Reporter Heather Bushman at hbushman@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X @hmb_1013.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Hoosier fans flock to Lucas Oil to watch ‘magic’ team chase history
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