For many TCU students, seeing the football team selected for the Rose Bowl was like Christmas come early.
They supported the team through 12 straight victories this season, witnessed the final game in Amon G. Carter Stadium and woke up at 8 a.m. to purchase bowl game tickets. Now the only thing keeping those fans from cheering on the Frogs in Pasadena is 1,400 miles.
Since the announcement of the Rose Bowl teams, plane tickets from Dallas/Fort Worth and Dallas Love
Field airports to Los Angeles have been listed as high as $800. Even on discount sites, tickets can hardly be found for less than $400, more than double the price of the game tickets.
Senior Mika Southall and junior David Sheetz both said they purchased their game tickets the morning they went on sale, but neither have secured an airline reservation. As ticket prices continue go up, they are looking for other means of transportation.
“I actually haven’t bought plane tickets yet,” Southall said. “I’m not sure how I’m getting there. I’d love to do a road trip and get a bunch of friends together, but I’m just not sure if it’s going to work out.”
Sheetz said that although ticket prices were high, driving was a last resort.
“They’re kind of expensive right now, about $600 I think for the roundtrip,” he said. “I just know that it’s really far away and that I don’t want to drive that far.”
Sophomore Casey Tounget said he and his friends were considering taking a bus to save money on airfare. But even bus tickets are not cheap, he said.
“I think the lowest I saw [plane tickets] at was like $360 something, and I’ve seen them all the way up to 800 bucks.”
He said a bus ticket was $250 round trip, stopping for a night in Albuquerque each way.
Freshmen Logan Webb, Alex Erwin, Ariana Vitarelli and Helen Halbach will make the drive to Pasadena together in Vitarelli’s car, estimating a cost of about $60 each for gas.
Though driving was the most cost-efficient transportation they had found, Webb said it would not be the easiest route. They had to first convince their parents to let them go.
Webb said they planned to drink plenty of Red Bulls and switch drivers every three hours of the 22-hour drive. Still, Vitarelli’s parents were wary of allowing her to take such a long road trip.
“They were really nervous about it, and they’re still kinda nervous about it,” she said. After appealing to them about the value of a road trip as a college rite of passage, they finally gave in, she said.
Webb wasn’t sure exactly when her group would leave or whether they would travel with other students in a caravan. Though the details of their road trip are still undecided, she said nothing could keep her from going to the game.
