It is that time of summer when my wife and I begin to plan our late summer and fall schedule. During this time, I am always trying to see if I can find a way to get to a professional ball game of some sort, whether it is the Minnesota Twins or the Vikings.
My son Adam has two passions in life: football and reading. We just got the book Treasure Island at the library today and three hours later, he has already finished all 27 chapters! I finally gave him my full-length book on New England Patriots coach Bill Belichek. That should keep him busy for tonight at least.
Who is his favorite football player? Brett Favre. With the chance of Brett Favre returning to the NFL in Minnesota, I really wanted to try to get my son Adam to a Viking game this year. He is also the only one of our four kids who could sit through a whole game. In fact, on Sunday afternoons, he has no trouble sitting through back-to-back games.
I checked both family and work schedules to see if we could get down to the Twin Cities for a game. I narrowed my search down to home games versus the Bengals, Seahawks, and Lions. I went on ebay, StubHub, etc. I couldn’t find a lower deck ticket on the side of the field for under $150 each.
If I moved from the 20-yard line to midfield around the 40 or 50-yard line, tickets instantly went up to $200 or more than $400 per seat. I could get some end zone upper deck seats for cheaper, of course, but the view from the television is usually better than that. If Favre announces he is coming to Minnesota, tickets will get even higher in the coming weeks.
As it is now, if just Adam, my wife, and I went to the game, we are looking at spending between $300 and $500 in tickets; plus gas, parking, and a place to stay. It is no easy task to take a kid to a football game anymore.
With ticket prices as high as they were, I figured maybe I would have a better shot at getting tickets to a Gophers’ football game. However, it is the first year of the new stadium, so tickets were about the same for a Gophers’ game as a Vikings’ game, if not more! In fact, there are not nearly as many Gopher tickets online because they have a set amount stored away for the opposing team and the University’s student body.
For the amount of money I could spend on tickets to one game, our family could purchase the NFL Sunday Ticket from DirecTV for $280. We would then have every game for the entire season.
The University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs are the defending Division II National Champions. They are still reasonably priced. I believe it is $10 for an adult to get into the game and kids and under get in free.
While I will keep UMD football in my back pocket, it still isn’t the experience I was trying to give Adam. Getting to watch Brett Favre in person would be his dream vacation. Granted, he is only seven years old, so he does have his whole life to get to an NFL football game.
When did it get so tough to take your kid to a professional football game? Just think if I wanted to bring our whole family of six! There is no chance of that, but that is okay, the three little ones couldn’t make it through the first half anyway.
For now, I will just keep scanning eBay and online brokers. You just never know what you might find. My wife tells me that I should just take Adam to a University of St. Thomas football game so he can see Miles (Drake) and Tait (Sande). After some searching, I found that tickets are only six bucks each. We just might be on to something here….
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