I have a terrible cold and a lighter wallet but What. A. Ride.
My 1st exposure to IU Football was attending the Asst Coaches' (who had just lost their jobs) Bucket Party after Mallory's last game. Started seriously following the next yr with Cam's 1st team. So, not as long-suffering as some of you but still...
I will never forget this run. It still hasn't really sunk in that IU somehow won the national championship in football. As some random guy at the DFW airport told me after the Rose Bowl, "Cignetti cracked the code" in this new era.
Go Hoosiers.
@handsofblab congrats Man, that's awesome. Think I know 2 others, who did the same, but that's a pretty elite club! I just got to go to ATL and that alone was amazing (and not nearly as hard on the wallet!)!
I have a terrible cold and a lighter wallet but What. A. Ride.
My 1st exposure to IU Football was attending the Asst Coaches' (who had just lost their jobs) Bucket Party after Mallory's last game. Started seriously following the next yr with Cam's 1st team. So, not as long-suffering as some of you but still...
I will never forget this run. It still hasn't really sunk in that IU somehow won the national championship in football. As some random guy at the DFW airport told me after the Rose Bowl, "Cignetti cracked the code" in this new era.
Go Hoosiers.
Posting is anonymous so I’ll ask the question? How much $ did you drop, total?
I have a terrible cold and a lighter wallet but What. A. Ride.
My 1st exposure to IU Football was attending the Asst Coaches' (who had just lost their jobs) Bucket Party after Mallory's last game. Started seriously following the next yr with Cam's 1st team. So, not as long-suffering as some of you but still...
I will never forget this run. It still hasn't really sunk in that IU somehow won the national championship in football. As some random guy at the DFW airport told me after the Rose Bowl, "Cignetti cracked the code" in this new era.
Go Hoosiers.
I’d love to hear a comparison of the three experiences. We did the Rose Bowl as that has always been on my bucket list, IU or not but didn’t do Peach or Championship…
Rose Bowl: Horrible experience that had nothing to do with the game & activities. It just didn't stop raining, other than during the game. Wet & muddy & walking 3 miles to/from the stadium. Was a mess. As far as the game, it was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. Total cost for 3 flights, 4 nights, & 4 tickets, 1 rental car.... about $12k + expenses.
Peach Bowl: Left for Atlanta at 3am on game day. 1 night at the Reverb hotel across the street from the stadium + 3 club seats bought before the Rose Bowl was played. About $6k total. Other than it being a relatively rushed experience on our timeline, it was absolutely wonderful. Stadium was fantastic. It was such a Hoosier crowd. And it was such an unexpected domination of a performance.
National Championship: 3 flights, 3 nights, 3 face value tickets, 1 rental car, about $13k + expenses. We had a great family trip to South Beach. Went to the CFP fan fest, didn't go to the Big Red Warmup because it wasn't really by us. Got in early on Saturday, Fan Fest on Sunday (rained again), and went to the stadium really early on Monday to tailgate and make sure we didn't get caught in Miami traffic. Went INTO the stadium at 4:30 as suggested by IU. I really enjoyed the stadium & our seats in the 3rd level End Zone. Really good atmosphere and obviously just a surreal moment to see IU win it.
Total Price with expenses included: Probably $36k. Which I'm regretting doing the math now. But I'll consider this a once in a lifetime experience with my son and wife.
My favorite experience: Probably Peach
General Observation: It was amazing that each stadium was a pro-IU crowd. Peach was definitely the most, followed by Rose, & Natty. It's actually a tie for me whether Peach or Natty was more impressive in that regard, just because it's insane to me that it could happen in literally the other team's house.
With all of that said, I'm never doing this again. I took my then 9-year-old son to the IU v. Illinois opener in 2022 that we won dramatically. He's been all-in ever since. We went to three games that year (Penn St. & Purdue) in Bloomington but watched the rest on TV. I've been watching on TV and making games here & there for a long time but that's when I was finally able to get my boy hooked. Starting in 2023 we drove to every home & away game in my car because that's all he wanted. Then we bought a bus in early 2024 to convert to an RV because I was tired of paying for hotels & being on the road to/from Bloomington on game days. Turns out it was a solid investment for last season because we were able to go to every game in a really magical year. Did the same this year (minus Kennesaw State because Junior had a football game of his own that day) and I felt like doing the whole playoff run was appropriate given where he started watching in 2022 & going in 2023 during lean years. I'm a little salty that the little bastard thinks that it's easy to win a natty since he's unable to appreciate how absolutely insane this turnaround was.
If you chose the RB, you chose the best one.
Rose: Iconic and you have to make that trip. Logistically difficult. LA very spread out. And expensive on NYE. But the Goodyear blimp, the Rose Bowl, the parade? Even some sun at the end? Can't beat it.
Peach: Logistically the best. Reasonable prices. Hotels, restaurants, stadium all right downtown. Easy trip. Like Indy in that it is set up for it. I really liked the Falcon's stadium. They have the Jerry World scoreboard type. Thought that was really cool.
Championship: Miami is not really my thing. This trip was just about the game-quick in and out focused only on attending the game. Was in town for about 48 hrs. Those ticket prices!
Really awesome! Envious. Very glad you were able to do that. Sounds so fun. Especially since we won them all!
You know that now you need to go to every post season game, right? You are good luck.
Did the B1G Championship and the Natty. Stupidly planned (and pre-paid) a 10-day January cruise back in July - causing me to miss the Rose and Peach. I'll never plan a January vacation again. Brutal travel schedule. Got home late on the 15th and flew to Fort Lauderdale at 5AM on the 17th.
Loved about everything that happened in Indy except for the Uber pick up area. Had to walk all the way across downtown in pretty cold weather. Other than that, it was perfect. Indy knows how to do events.
Disliked almost everything about Miami. Nasty fans, servers, and hotel personnel. Idiotic loud music or games by the house DJ during every extended timeout. Scoreboard malfunction that only showed Penalties...no other stats. Getting in and out of the stadium to the shuttle bus area was a pain. Longest restroom lines I've ever seen only to finally get in and see 3 or 4 urinals overflowing onto the floor and a dude with a mop - instead of fixing the problem, he was just moving the mess around. All in all an unforgettable night, but it wasn't because Miami did much of anything right.
Everything @handsofblab said.
By the time of the CFP championship, I was starting to feel travel & wallet fatigue. Being able to sell 2 extras for the Rose Bowl & Peach Bowl certainly helped! I’d definitely to do it again, but preplan better with things like buying a refundable flights waaay ahead of time. Cost of flights was the most painful. Maybe next time I’ll just tour the country in the RV.
@big-ryan I did the same thing with Indy, Pasadena, Atlanta, and Miami. Only spent about $1200 on tickets total. All in lower bowl. Good to have connections. Don’t think I will come down from this high for a few months.
Didn't do the full circuit, but was lucky enough to be able to attend the B1G Championship and Rose Bowl Game.
Big Ten Championship: Was fortunate enough to get face-value tix in section 241 on the 35 yard line. $415 a pop for my wife and I. We live out of state, so we came in on Friday night after work and attended the Carmel Chriskindlemarkt which was an awesome experience despite the frigid temperatures. For lodging, we luckily have a friend who lives right in downtown Indy that we were able to stay with. Attended the basketball game too for $83 a pop in the nose bleeds. The atmosphere inside LOS was unbelievable. I'd estimate it was 75-25 IU fans. I will say getting into the stadium was a nightmare and I was legitimately nervous for a trample risk. We got in line a good 90 minutes before kickoff, so I guess even an earlier start could have mitigated this. In retrospect, I think the way to go would have been to enter the stadium through the Convention Center instead.
Price for the 2 tickets to each of the 2 games ran us about $1,000. We got lucky to not have to fly or pay for lodging.
Rose Bowl: This time I made the trip with my college buddy so only had to buy one game ticket and one flight. Flight was $550, game ticket in the upper level of the stadium (probably 5-8 rows from the top, towards the corner) was $362, parking pass was $70, my half of the hotel in Marina Del Rey was $571 for 12/31-1/4. We got parade tickets for $150 each. I will say that we could have waited closer to 1/1 to buy our tickets to the game and parade and saved a bit, or significantly upgraded our seats to the game for the same price. Our assumption was that buying tix to the game before we knew which SEC team we were playing would help with the cost.. not the case. The experience of the Rose Bowl itself and its logistics actually far exceeded my expectations just because of all of the negative reviews I've read about it. I will say that we started walking into the stadium probably 2 hours before kickoff, but it was a much smoother and quicker experience than the B1G Championship. Despite not having primo seats, the sight line for the game was still very good. The one knock I'd have about the Rose Bowl is that the jumbotrons could certainly use an upgrade. I'd estimate the Rose Bowl was more like 80-20 IU fans. The atmosphere and nature of the game made it a less exciting game compared to the B1G title, but still an unbelievable experience. The atmosphere of the Big Ten Championship was the best sporting event I've attended to date, incredible in stadium production and LOS is a great facility, minus the nightmare it was to get in.
Total cost for the Rose Bowl including the game & parade tix, flight, hotel, parking ~$1,700 for just me.