DETROIT (WXYZ) — As some Detroit Lions fans prepare to fly to San Francisco for the NFC Championship on Sunday, 7 Action News is counting the costs.
On Ticketmaster, game tickets are selling anywhere from $595 to as much as $8,000 apiece. Most fall somewhere in between.
Costs for a round-trip plane ticket and a two-night hotel stay are around $1,100 on the lower end, according to Expedia.com.
Christopher Dickie said the trip will be "super expensive," but he said it's an opportunity he "couldn't pass up".
He tells 7 Action News that he and his wife, Nicole, decided they were going even before the game clock struck zero against Tampa Bay.
"My wife, she’s incredible," he said.
"She saw the end of that game and she knew, ya know, the timing's perfect. She knew exactly what was gonna happen, and she’s like let’s go," he recalled.
They will watch the Lions play in the NFC Championship against the 49ers while sitting in end zone seats.
Between the costs of the tickets, the hotel, and airfare, he said the trip is not cheap.
“If you want to send some sideline passes to make the sting hurt less, I’ll tell you the exact cost,” Dickie joked.
“It is a small fortune, but there’s no way I could have missed this opportunity," he said.
He said this is more than a game. Dickie lived in Michigan for a time and now lives in Arkansas, but he was raised on Michigan sports.
He's been cheering for the Lions for the past 41 years. That's Lions' loyalty for life, and he said it was shaped by and shared with his father.
“Honestly, my dad I and had a pretty tumultuous relationship, and we didn’t always get along but what brought us together every time was the Detroit Lions," he shared.
Dickie said, "He passed away late in 2020 during the pandemic, and he didn’t get to see the speech that Dan Campbell made about the knee cap and what this new culture is gonna be like and man, I miss him so much... to share in the Detroit Lions success.”
It's success he’s confident will continue on and after Sunday.
“We’re going to the Super Bowl baby. I mean, that’s it. We gotta make a stop in San Francisco, but then we’re going to meet up again in Vegas," Dickie said.
He said he and his wife will do some sightseeing, including the giant redwood trees in San Francisco on Saturday and then get to the game nice and early on Sunday.
