Tennessee Titans change ticket transfer rules in effort to limit number of Bengals fans

NASHVILLE — The Cincinnati Bengals and Tennessee Titans are set to meet Saturday in the NFL Divisional round of the playoffs, however the Titans have made changes to a policy aimed at keeping Bengals fans in Ohio, or at least out of the stadium.

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The Titans announced a change in the window ticket holders are able to transfer tickets to buyers, all designed at building uncertainty for fans looking to travel into town, according to a report from CBS affiliate WTVF-TV in Nashville.

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“We want Nissan Stadium to be two tone blue. And so by limiting this transfer window, it also limits the number of visiting team fans that we’ll have in the stadium,” Brooke Ellenberger, Vice President of Ticketing for the Titans told the station.

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After tickets are purchased, either directly from the Titans or through approved NFL sites, the new policy doesn’t allow those tickets to be transferred to someone else until 24 hours before kickoff, the station reports. The earliest ticket transfers could happen is 4:30 p.m. Friday and the Titans hope that is enough to prevent Bengals fans from traveling to Nashville and scooping up tickets.

“By limiting that transfer time would limit some of the resale and some of that transfer activity that would happen in advance,” Ellenberger told the station.

According to WTVF, the hold on transfers doesn’t apply if you buy tickets from websites like Ticketmaster, StubHub, or Seat Geek because they are official NFL partner organizations and are verified by the league. If you purchase a ticket from one of these sites you will get a ticket at purchase.

However, if the ticket buyer wants to transfer the tickets to someone else after the initial purchase, that’s when the 24 hour rule is in play.

The question remains, will this amended ticket policy, the cost of tickets, or even the high prices of hotels force area Bengals fans to reconsider the five-hour drive to Tennessee.

Our news partners at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati talked to Bengals fans this week looking to go to Nashville, with fans reporting they were greeted with high ticket prices and high prices for lodging.

“Every time I look (ticket) prices are changing, minute by minute, and going up, because people are buying them,” Bengals fan Sue Louis told WCPO. “So I really need to just bite the bullet and do it.”

But Louis also found hotels going for as high as $800 a night for Saturday night.

“Many hotels are sold out or are $500 a night,” she said.

As of Thursday morning, the cheapest get-in ticket at Nissan Stadium was $270 for a verified resale ticket in the upper deck of the stadium, according to Ticketmaster. If you’re looking to sit on the 50 yard line behind the Bengals bench, tickets are going from around $900 each to over $1,000.

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