After combing over the ticket resale market, numbers suggest the 49ers will have more fans attending the team’s NFC championship game at SoFi Stadium on Sunday against the Rams.
The Los Angeles Times reported that ticket resale site Vivid Seats is estimating 65 percent of fans in attendance at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., will be 49ers fans. The Rams and 49ers recently played in a Week 18 matchup at SoFi Stadium, in which Los Angeles had to use silent counts at home due to the crowd noise from 9ers fans.
"I'm not going to lie, I've never seen so many of the opposing team's fans at a game," Matthew Stafford's wife, Kelly Stafford, said after the Rams-49ers Week 18 matchup. "And we came from Detroit and there were a lot of good-traveling teams there, but that was wild. It was crazy. I mean, again, I've never seen anything like that, but it made it very hard for us because I guess we weren't expecting to be on silent count."
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With three days to go until Sunday’s game, plenty of tickets will be resold, and it’s more likely than not that the Rams will look to find ways to keep their fans engaged.
Kelly Stafford also tried to aid Rams fans by purchasing a “good amount” of tickets to be given to those who reached out to her via e-mail.
Currently, tickets are ranging from $599 to $12,000 apiece on StubHub.
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Ticketmaster initially restricted its public sales of Sunday’s game to residents of the greater Los Angeles region, with orders outside of it being canceled without notice and refunds given.
It appears the Rams are already afraid that the 49ers will again make SoFi Stadium their home — they're trying to restrict ticket sales for a potential NFC title game by geography.
— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) January 23, 2022
IMO pathetic and also premature — LA isn't even in the title game yet pic.twitter.com/G8VmbG9muv
The Rams lifted those restrictions after presale tickets sold out.
Since then, 49ers fans have scoured the secondary market, emboldened after the Rams' attempt to shut them out.
“The Rams aren’t going to stop anybody who wants tickets from coming,” Joe Leonor, founder of Niner Empire said via Yahoo! Sports. The 49ers fan group has more than 100 chapters worldwide. “What they’re doing really just infuriates 49ers fans. You’re trying to keep us out? OK, now we really are going to go.”
This season, Los Angeles won the NFC West for the third time in coach Sean McVay’s five years with the team. It was led by Matthew Stafford, who was traded to the team for former quarterback Jared Goff in the offseason and ranked second in the NFL in passing touchdowns (41).
Stafford has thrown for 568 passing yards and four touchdowns against zero interceptions in the postseason.
The 49ers are making their second NFC championship game appearance in the last three seasons. San Francisco advanced to Super Bowl 54 in the 2019 season, losing to the Chiefs, after beating the Packers in the conference championship.
This will be the second postseason meeting between the Rams and 49ers in their history. San Francisco defeated Los Angeles in the 1990 NFC championship game 30-3.
As members of the NFC West, the 49ers won both of the regular-season meetings between the teams this season. San Francisco has won six straight of these matchups dating to 2019.
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