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Podcast: Bison Media Zone
Episode:

NDSU organizing charter flight for fans to Arizona game
Category: Sports & Recreation
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2022-06-15 21:53:14
Description: FARGO The first marquee FBS game for North Dakota State was in 2006 when the Bison played at the University of Minnesota. The price of gas that year jumped to around $2.29 a gallon, only the second year the average gallon went over $2.

This year, Bison fans would gladly take $2.29 and a 240-mile drive down Interstate 94. The Sept. 17 game at the University of Arizona will most likely not be cheap, especially if fans haven’t made travel arrangements yet.



With commercial airline prices inflating, help is on the way.



NDSU Team Makers is putting together a charter flight that would leave Thursday before the game and return on Sunday. Details cannot be released until a few contractual details are finished.



“There’s always an extra level of excitement for our fans for those games,” said Derrick Lang, the executive director of Team Makers.



It’s 1,600 miles from Fargo to Tucson, Ariz., and driving it with gas around $5 a gallon would not be cheap. There appear to be no super savers flying from Fargo to Tucson, either.



A round-trip ticket from Friday, Sept. 16 to Sunday, Sept. 18 on Delta Airlines was $2,207 on Wednesday. United Airlines was slightly lower at $1,248.



Allegiant Air flights from Fargo’s Hector International Airport to Mesa, Ariz., a popular route over the years, were more expensive than usual with a $399 outbound flight on Thursday, Sept. 15 and a $289 fare on the return flight on Sunday. Mesa is less than a two-hour drive to Tucson.



American Airlines had a $928 airfare, but that included a connection and an eight- to nine-hour travel day.



NDSU’s game allotment of 3,000 tickets have been sold out for a while. Arizona put up single game tickets for sale last week. Arizona Stadium carries a capacity of 50,782 with the Wildcats averaging 34,900 in six home games last season.



The Bison have played FBS opponents 12 times since the first game at Ball State (Ind.) in 2006. Although impossible to quantify, that probably was the fewest fans NDSU brought to an opposing FBS stadium.



Winning makes traveling easier to plan. NDSU is 9-3 in those 12 games, including the last six in a row, the last 23-21 at the University of Iowa in 2016 when the Bison brought thousands to Kinnick Stadium.



“It’s been so long, people have an appetite for an FBS game, ” Lang said. “Our ticket allotment has been allocated and between the amount of people that want to travel for an FBS game and the amount of snowbirds in Arizona, people are familiar with the area.”



Fan charters have been common over the years in NDSU’s nine Division I FCS national title games in Frisco, Texas, since 2011. But this will be the first for a regular season game. NDSU had a charter booked for the 2020 game at Oregon, but that was canceled because of the pandemic.



Lang is hoping an announcement will come this week or next week. Unlike some charters to Frisco that included hotel, this one will be flight only.


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