Boise State offering ‘verified resale’ tickets for Washington State game. How do they work?

If you’re looking to snag tickets for an upcoming Boise State football game and think you’re out of luck because the team announced three straight sellouts at Albertsons Stadium, think again.

Boise State’s game against Portland State was announced as the program’s most-attended home opener, with a sellout crowd of 36,972. The upcoming games against Washington State (Saturday) and Utah State (Oct. 5) are also sold out.

But with Boise State’s verified resale program partnership with Ticketmaster, Bronco fans can still buy tickets with the university’s backing.

“We highly recommend our fans head straight to ticketmaster.com because those tickets are verified resale, which means they are legitimate,” Andrew Bondi, director of ticket operations at Boise State, told the Idaho Statesman.

The verified ticket process is a relatively new system for Boise State, implemented following the COVID-19 pandemic.

So, how does it work?

Fans can head to Ticketmaster’s Boise State football page — or any other sport they’re looking to get tickets for — and select the game they’re interested in.

Individuals who bought a ticket directly from Boise State can save the ticket to their phone, donate it to a charity partner, or transfer or sell the tickets to somebody else through Ticketmaster.

Resale tickets are listed on Ticketmaster’s website just like you would purchase tickets from the school. You can choose where to sit and compare prices across the stadium. The only difference is that resellers set the price.

It is possible to purchase tickets from other third-party vendors, but Bondi said that makes it much harder for Boise State to track and verify the ticket as real and could result in a ticket being denied.

“Back in the day when there was a little less technology, you’d have people that would say, ‘Hey, I posted (the ticket) on Craigslist. I’d posted it on Facebook,’ ” Bondi said. “… If two people ended up buying the same ticket, I don’t have a way of knowing who’s supposed to have it or anything like that. With today’s resale market and how Ticketmaster verifies that for us, we know that that ticket is legitimate.”

As of Monday afternoon, the cheapest tickets on Ticketmaster for Saturday’s game against Washington State were selling for $159 in the south end zone, while the most expensive was selling for $894. Resale tickets for Utah State are slightly less expensive, with the cheapest tickets costing $131 each.

Season tickets in the south end zone cost $224, or $37.33 per game.

“On the resale side, the seller controls the pricing, and that is obviously subject to the supply and demand of things,” Bondi said. “But sometimes you are able to find better deals, especially if maybe it’s closer to the game and somebody’s trying to sell their tickets, they may drop that price a little bit.”

Once you purchase a ticket, it’ll be findable through the Ticketmaster app or email. Boise State also offers the option to text a link with your tickets directly to your phone. Bondi noted that paper tickets are no longer accepted following COVID-19, with every ticket now scanned from your phone.