Want tickets for Sunday's NFC Championship game? Maybe you'll be in luck today and you can get tickets at face value.
The Bears are putting a limited number of tickets on sale today at 2 p.m. CST at this Ticketmaster site. Prices range (including taxes and fees) from $141.91 to $605.35 -- and yes, those are face value tickets.
Don't expect a lot of tickets to be left, though. The same site has a "Club Season Ticket Holder Presale" at 11 a.m. today; many of whatever's available may be sold through that presale.
If you can't buy tickets that way, you might try StubHub, where, as of 8 a.m. Tuesday, there were 5,943 tickets for sale -- that's nearly 10% of the capacity of Soldier Field. The least expensive ticket listed -- for nearly the last row in the upper level in the north end zone (section 354) -- was $445. It'll cost you $600 to get in the corner of the end zone in the lower level (section 146), and there are tickets listed for as much as $15,000 (for the United Club on the 300 level). Lower level seats around midfield are in the $2500-$2600 range.
This Sun-Times article examines the hype; many say this is "the biggest game in the history of Chicago sports", but the article points out that, for example, the 1963 NFL title game at Wrigley Field was for the overall championship in those pre-Super Bowl days. Nevertheless, this is a huge game due to the rivalry, the first playoff meeting between the two teams in 69 years, and the fact that the winner goes to the Super Bowl.
Whatever you do, if you are going for a secondary market ticket, please be careful and use a legitimate reseller like StubHub. There were many stories, during the 2005 World Series, of people buying realistic-looking counterfeit tickets on the street outside the Cell and being out hundreds of dollars without getting to see the game.