Niners fans look for tickets after Rams end sale restriction

While most of the football world is still recovering from the insane weekend of divisional round games, fans who want tickets for next week’s NFC Championship Game have had a lot happening.

It now appears that, 24 hours after the Rams and Ticketmaster had a geographic restriction on who could purchase the seats, there are no restrictions anymore. Just folks in and around the Rams pleading to keep fans decked in 49ers red out of SoFi Stadium — and the 49ers players themselves encouraging the Faithful to show up.

After the 49ers beat the Packers on Saturday, it set up the Sunday game between the Rams and Bucs to give the winner the right to host the NFC title game. The Rams quickly sprung into action, setting up a pre-sale for season ticket holders to buy their seats

from the team directly in the event the Rams won.

But there was one noteworthy restriction at the top of the presale, which was first spotted by The Athletic’s David Lombardi. At the top of the pre-sale page on Ticketmaster, it noted that public sales to the game would be “restricted to residents of the Greater Los Angeles region.” Any buyers with credit card billing addresses outside of LA would have their purchases canceled and refunded.

The Rams pulled out a dramatic win over the Bucs, giving up all of a 27-3 lead before a 44-yard pass from Matthew Stafford to Cooper Kupp set up Matt Gay’s 30-yard walk-off field goal, setting them up to host the game and turning those pre-sale holds into actual tickets.

It appears that the Rams sold all the tickets for the game, removing the need for the restriction on seats. All available seats on any ticketing website, including Ticketmaster, are considered secondary — buying them from the person who bought them from the team. There have never been any restrictions on who can purchase those seats, meaning the 49ers Faithful could always still get in the game — and makes it an odd look for the Rams.

The cheapest ticket on Ticketmaster as of Monday afternoon was $510.

It’s worth noting that attendees — 49ers and Rams fans alike — will still be required to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test in order to enter SoFi Stadium.

After seeing just how many 49ers fans showed up for their team in Week 18’s win-or-go-home regular-season finale, it’s hard to blame the Rams. Los Angeles coach Sean McVay said the noise supporting the 49ers “caught us off guard” and Stafford said it was “a tough environment for us to communicate in really the whole second half,” something his wife Kelly echoed on her podcast.

49ers fans showed up in droves for their wildcard game at the Dallas Cowboys the following week and even had a decent, if smaller, contingent make it to Green Bay. The strong showings have led to several tweets from people around the Rams begging their fans not to sell to 49ers fans.

That has only seemed to give more encouragement to 49ers fans and to both former and current players, too. Deebo Samuel said it was “crazy” that there were restrictions in place, and both Joe Staley and Frank Gore — fresh off of back-to-back big wins betting on the 49ers — have offered to buy up tickets.

That said, this isn’t even the first time that 49ers fans have dealt with restrictions, as the Seahawks banned sales to California residents in the 2013 title game against the 49ers. It’s become common practice for some teams, though this instance may be the first time a team has attempted to do so within a state.

For a rivalry with a long history between the two teams and the two cities, Sunday is setting up to be a legendary matchup — both on the field and in the stands.