News

IU-Ohio State game heats up secondary market for tickets

WFIU | By Elias Khoury

Published October 14, 2026 at 1:16 PM EDT

Cheering IU students wearing red in the student section at a football game — Indiana students selected up to just five football games as part of the new season ticket package.

Friends rely on IU student Jeremiah Boards when they want to sell tickets to games. So, he has plenty of experience in the market since the Hoosiers blasted into the top echelon of college football.

“My freshman year when we first started, you were selling tickets for 40-50 bucks,” said Boards, a junior. “After the Michigan game my freshman year, they just shot up, and it was like 100 plus for tickets after that, and then that was the case all last year. As we win more games, the ticket prices just get more expensive.”

That’s especially the case for Saturday’s game against Ohio State, a match of undefeated teams that ranks among the most-anticipated ever on campus.

The lowest asking price on SeatGeek on Wednesday afternoon was $472 for a single ticket.

“I was seeing people (online) trying to sell their tickets for like $1,000,” Boards said. “Obviously, that's a super high end. But when it first came out, it was consistently $600, $700, $800 for an Ohio State ticket, and it was crazy.”

Lane Heil, a senior in the Kelley School of Business, is one of many students who tried finding an affordable ticket.

“I kind of gave up. I'm not gonna lie,” Heil said. “After seeing them going for hundreds of dollars before any hype of the season came around, I was like, ‘There's no hope for me.’”

Distribution of student tickets at IU changed this season, with no full-season packages and having to decide between the two marquee games — Ohio State and USC.

“I do think it incentivizes students who get the better games to sell them off at a higher price to make a couple dollars,” Heil said. “That just comes with human nature, you try to do something good and people are gonna make it better for themselves.”

Boards shared in Heil’s discontentment.

“I think it's horrendous that I paid $450 for a student ticket pass just to not even be able to go to all the home games,” he said, “and now have to compete essentially to get the tickets I want.”

Ultimately, though, Heil said a winning football team is worth it.

“As an IU fan and someone who wants the team to do well and everyone to have a good time,” he said, “I'm totally okay with there being a struggle to get tickets.”