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How to Get Floor Seats at the National Championship – For $100
By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud
April 5 , 2007
"Want to go to the national championship game?" Howard asked me last Friday.
"That'd be great," I said. But how would he get tickets?
The game was a few days away, and getting tickets this late – if you could get them at all – would cost a fortune. You see, the game was in Florida's backyard, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Unless you knew someone, the tickets would be tough to come by.
It turns out, Howard got us lower level seats, for face value - $102, each. If you ever want to go to a "big game" you too can do exactly what Howard did...
"If the Gators make it to the finals, I've got lower level seats for $102 each."
What did Howard mean by "if"? This is where it got interesting... Howard explained:
"At the beginning of the tournament, I bid on the right to buy lower level seats in the championship game, only if the Gators made it to the finals.
Back then, there were 64 teams in the tournament, so the price of that right was very cheap. So I bought twelve of 'em."
On Saturday night, the Florida Gators won their Final Four matchup. So Howard's right to buy kicked in. It more than kicked in actually – those rights to buy 12 tickets were now worth a lot of money!
Leave it to my friend Howard Goldstein to have figured this one out...
Howard and I worked together back in the early 1990s as brokers selling international stocks and bonds. Before that, we were both at the University of Florida. Howard is a year or two ahead of me. When I was starting out as a broker, I rented a room from him. Howard is still an international broker today. These days, my dad and Howard share the same office.
For the last 15 years, in addition to finding good deals on international stocks and bonds, Howard's figured out how to get to big Florida Gator games. This time around, he used something called Ticket Reserve - www.ticketreserve.com.
Ticket Reserve makes a market in the right to buy tickets for the finals if your team makes it... It acts like the floor traders on the stock exchange, only it trades teams instead of trading stocks. And just like stocks, the values of these rights to buy fluctuated dramatically...
For example, with two minutes left against North Carolina, Georgetown was down by 10 points. Just like a crashing stock price, the price of Georgetown's "buying rights" quickly fell from $200 to $20.
Then Georgetown staged a miraculous comeback... Georgetown tied the game, and the rights to buy shot back up to $200. In the end, Georgetown won in overtime, and the rights to buy stood at $400.
The value of the rights to buy went from $200 to $20 then back to $400, all seven minutes in basketball time (30 minutes in the real world).
Howard bought 12 rights. Six of us went. Howard was kind enough to sell the tickets to us for what he had into them. He sold his other rights for a huge profit.
But it wasn't about making a profit on the rights. For Howard, it was about locking in lower level seats at face value, if the Gators made it.
Ticket Reserve's slogan is, "If your team goes to the Championship, so do you!" So, for example, if you're a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, you can buy the right to a ticket to the Super Bowl for about $130.
Howard is a good friend, and one of my recommended brokers. I've known him for many years, and sat across from him for a year as a broker, so I know how well he takes care of customers.
If you need a ticket, try ticketreserve.com. If you need a great international stock and bond broker, try Howard (877-539-1004 or hgoldstein@lasallest.com).
Good investing (and good ticket buying),
Steve
Editor's note: Steve Sjuggerud is a regular contributor to DailyWealth, a free investment newsletter focused on the world's best contrarian opportunities. We write with a simple belief in mind: You don't have to take big risks to make big money with your investments.
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