How to get into the BCS Championship Game for free? A step by step story

Step 1. You must decide that you want to go to the game and travel to the city in which the game will be played.

I did this by booking my ticket to Miami to see the Gators play in the BCS championship game. I had decided a while a go that I was going to go with or without a ticket in order to spend the game watching with friends, fans, and other football enthusiasts. Unfortunately, in Nicaragua, there just aren’t that many big American football fans.

Step 2. You must then find good tickets for a good price.

My uncle George emailed my little brother and me a few days before the game and told us that he had found 2 club seats for face value. We debated the price for a while (350 dollars each, or enough to feed a family of 4 in Nicaragua for at least 3 months) but then ultimately decided that if the tickets were good, then we could always trade the two tickets for 3 or 4 upper deck tickets, allowing my daddy and Phil to go to the game as well.

Step 3. Go to the stadium on gameday.

After arriving into Miami International Airport at 11pm on Wednesday night and eating some munchkins from Dunkin Donuts, I slept and then with my family, went to the game the next day around noon. We had everything set….the food, the Nicaraguan rum, the frisbee, the parking pass, and the two tickets.

Arriving at the stadium was just an incredible experience. The parking lot was decked with orange and blue. It was exactly like a Gators’ home game, only in Miami instead of Gainesville. A few Oklahoma fans would pop up every now and then but Gators outnumbered the Sooners probably 20 to 1.

Beanbagging

Step 4. Try to exchange your two good tickets for 3-4 tickets.

This is the most challenging step of all. What it requires are two tickets in hand and two scalpers that deserve to go to the seventh level of hell. So this is how I did it. After arriving at the stadium and partaking in the normal tailgating activities of drinking, eating, throwing the football, and playing bean bag games, Phil, Louis, and I decided to head out and see what we could get for the tickets. We had absolutely no intention of selling the tickets without assurance that we could get 3 or more tickets for the same price. So we just started holding up the tickets and seeing what people had or what they were willing to pay for our tickets.

After some time of looking a scalper approached us and told us that he may have a friend who had three tickets and would be willing to exchange. So we waited for a few minutes and it turns out that this man did have a friend with three upper deck tickets…exactly what we were looking for. So while Phil inspected the tickets, I asked the guy how much he wanted for them and he told me $600 for the three….face value. Face value for our two tickets was $700 so it was almost an even swap. In my warped, honest mind, I just assumed that it would be easier for them to sell the pair of good tickets and they could make more money so that’s why this deal was being made. So and it still enfuriates me to say this, but the one scalper gave me the $700 and then I gave him the two tickets. Then the other scalper refused to sell us the three tickets after he had already said it was a done deal. Oh how royally I screwed up the transaction! They were straight up scam artists and I got scammed. Why in the world did I give the one guy the tickets before I had the other three tickets in my hand?!? What was I thinking? Was I out of the country for too long, was I just too honest? The guy said that he just sold the tickets to someone on the phone which was complete and total bullshit. He was actually “talking” to someone on the phone and told us that they were willing to pay $600 for each ticket. Seriously I wanted to punch them both in the face not only for insulting my intelligence but for being horrible horrible people. If I had a gun, I think they would be dead. Well if karma holds up to be true, they may be dead already.

For the next hour or so, I stalked the two scalpers. I was in their face, yelling, pleading, begging, chatting, trying to do something to get them to just give me back the two tickets or even just give me two upper deck tickets. I knew that with the $700 we were not going to be able to buy shit and I was just hoping to get into the little piece of heart that these guys might have left in their bodies. Even though they were big men, I still got in their face as close as possible without turning to violence. I also ruined their sales for the next hour as I told each and every person that approached them, how sleazy they were. Just writing this right now, three weeks after the fact, still gets me very riled up. After an hour of pleading and feeling like the dumbest man on planet Earth, I finally threw in the towel and returned to my tailgating spot. Devastated, furious, and disheartened would be the three adjectives to describe my emotional state at the time.

Step 5. Cry a little.

I got back to the car and told my dad what happened and then just went to the front seat, put my head in my lap, and just cried. I lost our two tickets, the two tickets that my Uncle George got for me at face value, the two tickets that my little brother and I were going to use to watch the Gators win, the two tickets that represented a night of memories. And I lost them in incredible fashion. I had money for them but I had lost. The cheapest two tickets we could find that anyone was selling were about $1000, a price that neither of us was willing to pay. Really, I just felt terrible that I had lost my brothers ticket and had been a complete dumbass in doing so. I honestly did not even want to pay the $300-$350 for the ticket in the first place because I do not believe any football game is worth that price. I live for practically two months with that money…I just couldn’t justify it.

Step 6. Have good friends.

After 10-15 minutes of crying and feeling sorry for myself, and the 1-2 hours of getting scammed, trying to recuperate, then trying to find new tickets, I got a hold of myself and went to eat more food and drink more beer. I had already wasted part of my day, the day that was supposed to be glorious, the day to remember for all times, and I wasn’t going to let those two fuckers ruin my day any longer.

We, including my dad, my uncle, and other friends, went out trying to find two tickets for $700 and everyone was trying their hardest to cover for my terrible mistake. But in the end, there were no tickets to be found. So Louis, Phil, and I resigned ourselves to watching the game on tv, my dad and my sister went back to my uncles house, and my uncle went into the game with his ticket. Louis, Phil, and I decided to watch the game from the parking lot, in which there were at least 20,000 Gator fans with plasma tvs, beers, food, etc. We were still going to have a damn good time.

Then I received the call….

Step 7. Have big balls and a fearless little brother.

One of my best friends, Russ, called me and asked me where I was. I said I was in the parking lot and wasn’t able to find any tickets. He then told me that I should be in the stadium and gave me the details. He told both my brother and I that there was a bathroom next to Gate 4 (it could have been Gate J, F, or G…I don’t remember) and that next to the bathroom was a curtain. Inside this curtain was a guy who was charging $100 per person to enter the stadium. You just went up to the curtain, told him that you wanted to go to the game and then gave him the money. That simple.

So Phil, Louis, and I just looked at each other and I said that we should go for it. My brother was in as well. Phil was way more skeptical and he is just conservative by nature but eventually I convinced him to give it a shot. The only problem that was between the three of us we only had $250. I just figured the guy would take 3 people at a discount.

So off we went to the area where the bathroom and the curtain was. Sure enough, the curtain was next to the bathroom but first we went into the bathroom to scope out the area. Then we just were hovering around the curtain deciding what to do next. Finally I told Louis to just walk in and tell whoever was inside that we wanted to go to the game. So he did it. Fearless.

Heaven's Gate

According to Louis, he said exactly that and then two women who were working as part of the catering staff asked he had already paid. Being intelligent, he responded yes and then the women just said to go through the door in the back. He called out to Phil and I and immediately I went to the curtain and then had to call Phil in a few more times before he came through. At least the three of us were in this little catering kitchen…..

Step 8. Just walk right into the stadium and BCS national championship game.

We walked to the back door, opened it, and were immediately inside the stadium, walking up the ramps along with all the paying customers. Un-friggin-believable. It was like walking through the doors of heaven and we didn’t even have to die. We were inside the stadium for FREE!!!

The Zero stands for FREE

Step 9. Enjoy the game, a beer, and an arepa while you’re at it.

The Game

After overcoming the shock of how easy it was to get into the BCS Championship Game, Phil, Louis, and I had to get to our seats. But wait, what seats? Aha, the only real problem with sneaking into the game is that you do not get assigned seats. But as we all know there are ALWAYS some seats at a big game, whether it be corporate seats that no one used, a family that missed its flight, or fans that got too drunk in the parking lot. Yet, we decided to opt out of looking for seats and instead made our way up to the surest bet, the top row of the stadium, and we stood in the aisle. We were happily standing in our seats to hear the national anthem, see the teams storm the field, etc. For the first quarter, we happened to end up in a very Oklahoma section and although the people were very nice, I convinced the group to move to a Gator section for the next quarter. From there we basically just switched section to section following the action on the field. It was actually pretty efficient and successful. But then we got a text message before the halftime from Tio Jorge letting us know that he had empty seats next to him so we headed down to his section.

Arepas and Beer

Before getting to the seats, we made a pitstop for some arepas and beer, my first arepas in a long time. I absolutely love arepas. I seriously want to move to Venezuela just so I can eat them whenever I want. I need to learn how to make them.

So with arepa and beer in tow, we headed to the seats and enjoyed the rest of the game from there. The game was close and relatively low scoring but in the end the Gators prevailed as I knew they would all along. Seeing my team win the BCS Championship Game live was a moment that I had always wanted to experience and I can now cross it off my bucket list for good. Well, I may end up in California next year considering that the Gators will be #1 heading into the season.

I also want to end on a happy note by lifting up my middle finger to the scalpers. I hope you get hit by a car and die. Go Karma! Go Gators!

We are number one. Sorry Utah!