Ohio State is headed back to Pasadena for the first time since 2009. It’s a great chance to see some of America’s greatest New Year’s Day traditions in person, from the Tournament of Roses Parade to the Rose Bowl game.
If you’re still on the fence about whether to go, read this first, then come back to secure your seats.
As with every Ohio State football game this year, there are a bunch of ways to get in.
You can buy from the official site, buy from a secondary source, or buy directly from Ohio State.
Here’s how to buy tickets to watch the Buckeyes play in the Rose Bowl, as well as along the Tournament of Roses parade route.
First, the game.
The Ohio State sideline will be on the west side of the stadium, the same side as the press box.
You can find a complete seating chart here, but the sections on the Ohio State side are 12 through 25.
Buy General Tickets
A limited number of tickets will be released Tuesday, December 4 at noon Eastern (9:00 am Pacific). You can buy those through Ticketmaster here.
You can buy a maximum of four tickets through this sale. Prices start at $160 per seat, plus fees.
Buy Tickets Through Ohio State
A second option is to buy your seats through Ohio State.
This will guarantee that you are part of the Ohio State section of the stadium.
You can apply for tickets through OSU via this website. The deadline to apply for tickets is 5:00 pm on Wednesday, December 5.
Current OSU season ticket holders and faculty and staff will receive priority, and then the general public will have their orders filled in the order that they are received.
Tickets are $180 each, and you have the option to buy a $40 parking pass through that website as well.
Buy Tickets On The Secondary Market
If you can’t get seats through the official Rose Bowl site or the OSU ticket lottery, there are other ways to get in.
Secondary sites like SeatGeek and StubHub will have thousands of tickets available in the weeks leading up to the game.
The “official” secondary site of the Rose Bowl is PrimeSport. They currently have tickets available starting at $236 each.
Right now, the “get-in” price for two tickets on StubHub is $192. You can sit on the 50 on the Ohio State side of the stadium for $529.
In general, the rule of thumb is tickets get cheaper the closer you get to game day. There’s not an absolute guarantee that tickets will drop, but the odds strongly favor waiting until much closer to New Year’s Day to pull the trigger on the secondary market.
Buy Tournament of Roses Parade Tickets
It is definitely possible to watch both the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl game on the same day.
However, you will want to make sure your parade seats are closer to the start of the parade route than the end.
You can find a map of the parade route here.
From the corner of Orange Grove and Colorado (the famous turn in the parade route), it’s just 1.3 miles to the stadium.
The further down the parade route you get, the further you are from the stadium, the later it will be, and the worse traffic will get.
You can buy reserved grandstand seating parade tickets from the official provider, Sharp Seating.
You’ll want to try to grab something in Area 2 or maybe 3 to get out at a reasonable time.
You can also try to grab a seat at curbside for free, but you’ll probably have to stake out your spot pretty early.
All of the relevant information on watching the parade is on the Tournament of Roses Parade official website.