SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Brendan Boyle checked his work schedule. Then he blocked off the final Monday of January and booked flights to Las Vegas for himself, his wife and his teenage daughter.
The six-term congressman from Pennsylvania’s 2nd District is a 1999 Notre Dame graduate. He’s not senior enough to control the calendar of the U.S. House of Representatives. Two years ago, that meant he was stuck in Washington for the inauguration of Donald Trump on the same day Notre Dame played for the national championship. Boyle watched every snap of that loss to Ohio State, but he couldn’t get to Atlanta for it.
“That opening drive, that moment of hope is something I’ll always remember,” Boyle said. “It’s like, ‘Wait a minute, is this really going to happen?’”
For a large swath of Notre Dame’s fan base, that feeling is back. And it has gathered strength.
Notre Dame is among the preseason betting favorites to win its first national championship in 38 years, one of the most prominent title droughts in American sports. The Irish have the best odds to finish the regular season undefeated on FanDuel; their odds to make the College Football Playoff are at -750. To approximate that in point spread terms, the Irish are about a two-touchdown favorite to make the 12-team field.
With coach Marcus Freeman, quarterback CJ Carr and virtually the entire defense back, plus a light schedule and the lingering angst of being snubbed on selection day last December, Notre Dame fans are brimming with faith that this year might be the year. And many are priming their wallets, their credit card points and their vacation schedules to make sure they don’t miss a game that is still six months (and multiple playoff rounds) away.
Some have booked hotels, others have grabbed flights and most are already thinking about tickets after the get-in price for the Notre Dame-Ohio State title game in 2024 maxed out above $2,000. It’s a kind of planning ahead many fans fear could set the stage for heartbreak. But they can’t help themselves.
“This has been many decades in the making, this season,” Boyle said. “It’s both wonderful to be really looking forward to something and it makes me feel nervous. What’s the saying, once bitten, twice shy? I feel like I’ve been bitten 12 times.”
Boyle attended the Bush Push game as a recent graduate, walking out of Notre Dame Stadium after that loss to USC thinking that the Irish were on the verge of a return to prominence. He also felt that way during his senior year when he called games on WVFI, the student radio station. In the 1998 season opener, Notre Dame upset defending national champion Michigan, which started Tom Brady at quarterback. Boyle called the game from the press box wearing a white dress shirt and dark tie, more fitting of a future congressman than a play-by-play man. As the clock ticked down, Boyle took off his headphones, dropped the microphone and turned back into a student, rushing the field with his classmates. He got a photo with the radio team while celebrating. It hangs in his office.
These days Boyle thinks about another picture, not yet taken.
“This time it’s me, my wife and my daughter.”
John McCauley bets on Notre Dame to make the national championship game almost every summer, just not in the way you’d think.
In mid-August, McCauley, a subway alum from Nashville whose grandfather worked in Notre Dame’s development office under former school president Rev. Ted Hesburgh, buys an option on title game tickets at CFP-RSVP.com. It’s a virtual marketplace affiliated with the CFP that sells the right to purchase at face value a ticket to the championship game, attached to a particular team.
The company has roughly 2,000 tickets to sell, split between the lower bowl (placed in a team-specific section) and upper bowl (where they’re spread out). Last year, a preseason RSVP for Indiana went for $20. Texas opened at $300 and sold out. When Notre Dame won its season opener at Texas A&M two years ago, McCauley bought four Irish RSVPs for $160 each. A week later, after the Northern Illinois loss, Notre Dame RSVPs were selling for $30. And a day after Notre Dame beat Penn State in the Orange Bowl, guaranteeing the Irish a spot in the title game, McCauley bought four more RSVPs for $800 each.
Considering the get-in-price for a lower bowl Notre Dame-Ohio State ticket went for triple or quadruple the $850 face value on the secondary market, McCauley still came out ahead by buying the option and paying face value. Of course, McCauley also bought four Notre Dame RSVPs last year for $320 each, meaning a $1,280 bet on the Irish making the title game went bust.
He regrets nothing. He’ll buy another four RSVPs for Notre Dame when the marketplace opens in mid-August. He has already booked hotel rooms at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas — one for himself and his wife, another for his two adult sons.
“This is the first time I’ve had the Lou Holtz feeling about Notre Dame since Lou Holtz,” McCauley said. “All of us are superstitious and we hate talking about this. But we listen to every podcast on Notre Dame, even the terrible ones.”
The CFP-RSVP market opens on Aug. 12 and remains open until the night before the bracket is revealed. It reopens after the teams are announced and closes shortly after the second semifinal. A few days later, those holding the winning options can purchase tickets at face value.
Rob Boaz has run CFP-RSVP from Chicago for the past eight years. He doesn’t do much advertising, although there’s a link to the site on the College Football Playoff website. The business rarely sells out of its specific team allotments, and the prices can fluctuate during games depending on scores.
“I can’t judge someone’s risk profile,” Boaz said. “Some people don’t want to lose $20. Some fans will spend $1,000 without batting an eye. We try to make sure people know what they’re purchasing because with so many stadiums going to premium seating, prices for college football have gone up. There’s high demand.”
Dan Kelly is one of the fans who love to track that demand. He earned a master’s at Notre Dame and now teaches at Illinois Central College in Peoria. He’s a season ticket holder in part because he’s a diehard Notre Dame fan and in part because he’s intrigued by the economics of ticket access.
Two years ago, he bought two RSVPs for the national title game against Ohio State in the minutes after Mitch Jeter’s game-winning field goal against Penn State. He paid $1,000 each and still came out ahead after paying face value for the tickets plus the RSVP cost.
“I got in the door for $500 less than your average fan who didn’t donate $25,000 to the school,” Kelly said.
Next month, Kelly will buy this year’s Notre Dame RSVP and hope for the best. Looking at the schedule, he figures the cost will only go up through September. He has already scouted out a $900 plane ticket. He’s got lodging tentatively set, too, thanks to a friend who owns a condo in Las Vegas. The only catch is that his friend might need the place if her favorite team makes it to the title game, too.
“She’s a Purdue fan,” Kelly said. “I think I’ll be all right.”
Dan Byrne bought season tickets this spring for the first time. He has minimal intention of actually using them.
A third-generation Notre Dame graduate who lives in South Florida with four young kids, Byrne bought a pair in Section 111 basically to get access to CFP tickets. Having season tickets also got him six for the Wisconsin game at Lambeau Field, two for BYU in Provo and an additional six for the home game against Miami. He’ll use all of those. But the rest? Those don’t really matter.
“We bought season tickets this year for the CFP,” Byrne said. “This doesn’t feel like my historical blind optimism. It feels like, you better plan.”
Two years ago, Byrne bought four tickets to the national championship game for $2,200 each. He didn’t have a connection and had to go to the secondary market. He even cut short a family vacation to Disney World to make it, having booked that trip to Orlando immediately following Notre Dame’s loss to Northern Illinois. Now he already has a room at the Virgin Hotel in Las Vegas, a reservation made two days after Indiana beat Miami for last year’s title.
“Historically I haven’t planned this far in advance,” he said. “But I have the gene that requires some level of optimism to stay on the bandwagon.”
Ryan Sakowich can relate. The 2016 graduate from New York plans to purchase an RSVP for the first time this summer after nearly paying $5,000 to get into Mercedes-Benz Stadium two years ago. He boarded a flight with his fiancee without tickets and assumed they’d drop below $2,000. When it got closer to kickoff, the get-in price had nearly doubled.
Sakowich ended up getting in for free because his fiancee knew a trustee with an extra seat in his suite. The suite happened to be next to comedian and Irish superfan Shane Gillis.
“That’s how I got in for zero dollars,” Sakowich said. “My fiancee watched it in the hotel, but she got a really nice pair of diamond earrings out of it.”
Sakowich has already booked a room at the Bellagio for January.
Sometimes planning ahead requires even more discipline, which is the case for Brian from Philadelphia (who asked that his last name not be used). The day after Notre Dame got left out of last year’s CFP, Brian decided he would forgo all travel for the next year while putting all expenses on his airline credit card. He’d finance getting to Las Vegas and staying there via points, which he checks almost daily. He’s already beyond 60,000 points, enough for the flight, but the hotel will probably require him getting over 100,000. He plans to figure out the ticketing situation later.
“I decided I’m using my credit card, whether I’m buying a $2 can of Coke or $2,000 new bed that I just bought, to get these points,” Brian said. “I haven’t gone on a trip since Dec. 7 and I don’t plan on going anywhere until Jan. 25. I’ve never felt this confident that we’ll make the run and we could finish the run.”
Brian usually attends at least one home game every season, plus a couple of road stops. He traveled to Miami and Pittsburgh last fall. This year, he’ll maintain his travel budget instead.
“I’m not wasting money on the regular season,” Brian said. “I’ve never put all my eggs in the basket of going to a Playoff game. I was thinking about Miami, but I’m going to save everything for the big show.
“We got to get there. And if not, I’m going on a nice trip somewhere.”
But that’s not a possibility the Notre Dame fan base wants to entertain right now. There’s so much hope surrounding a program that could be preseason No. 1, with a realistic chance to finish there in late January, too. For many Irish fans, planning ahead to be in Las Vegas next January is simply part of believing.
“The schedule, the depth, CJ Carr returning, the coordinators back, the pain of missing last year, it just seems like a confluence of events these past few years,” Sakowich said. “I don’t think there’s been any year that feels like it might be the year quite like this one does.”