Going to an NFL game

If you want easy legit tickets sign up to ticketmaster team alert so you know when they are on general sale

alternative is get them vis www.stubhub.com

do not use a sports agency as you will get them on the door from the 2 million touts anyway if you leave it to the last day

above all enjoy!!

If you stay in San Diego (brilliant place), we stayed at a hotel that has very easy 5-10 minute access to the stadium via easy tube style overground train, they were selling tickets in the hotel lobby (Handlery Hotel).
Tailgating in SanDiego is great fun, the cheerleaders and live bands are in the car park entertaining the fans

Cheers guys, that's a relief, will start looking into it

This is a bit long but worth reading if you like the game and culture of American Football - and will give you a bunch more options if the NFL games don't pan out.

Try a college game - they're a bit different. Manic, and more loyal fanbases, also 14 teams play at higher capacity stadiums than the biggest NFL stadium (NY Giants/Jets) and the student section is frequently mental. The tailgating is massive too.

Just a couple of clips...

Arizona State@Wisconsin - not even rivals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tODlPxhbGF8

A Penn State whiteout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLKszZAx4Y

Michigan drive late against Notre Dame at 34-31 down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rTOuB0rQtM

Depending on exactly where you are going, there are a host of good college teams out on the west coast too. They tend to play on Saturdays, and sometimes on Thursdays and Fridays.

California has 4 top tier teams (top 60) and three more just below the top tier (next 60)...

In order of how good they are likely to be this year, starting with the 4 Pac-12 teams...

USC Trojans - based in LA. Many people's favs to win the national championship. Play in the LA Coliseum, where the Raiders played when they were there. Huge team - maybe the third biggest following in the country after Notre Dame and Ohio State. Play in Red and Gold. Fierce rivalry with UCLA, big rivalry with Stanford and Notre Dame.

Stanford Cardinal (note, no s. Cardinal is a colour) - in a suburb of San Francisco. Produced one of the highest touted draft prospects of recent years in the Colts #1 pick overall Andrew Luck. The most academic top flight football university according to two of the three university tables that I've seen. Play in Red and White. 50k capacity stadium.

California Golden Bears (often just called Cal) - Based in Berkeley near Oakland/SF. Gone off the boil a bit of late but have a big support. Fierce rivalry with Stanford, and a slightly less fierce one with UCLA. Fanbase is famously liberal. 60k capacity stadium.

UCLA Bruins - Based in LA and play at the world famous Rose Bowl - in use since well before most NFL franchises were even born. Just sacked their coach, and suffer because anyone worth their salt from the hotbed of talent that is Southern California tends to go to USC. Play in Light Blue and Gold.

There are also the San Diego State Aztecs (red, black and gold) (who share the Qualcomm with the chargers). They're actually not bad these days, but play in a less prestigious conference, the Fresno State Bulldogs (red white and blue), who are mediocre at best, and the San Jose State Spartans (blue, white and gold) who aren't very good at all.

If you post when you'll be there, I'll have a look at the fixture list, and see if there's anything that you should try to get to.

There are also two big teams in Washington (Washington Hurricanes(Seattle) and Washington State Cougars(miles from the coast-almost in Idaho)). Two in Oregon as well, the Oregon State Beavers in a place called Corvallis, and the Oregon Ducks, in Eugene.

The Ducks never used to be anything special but have been a big force of late because the largest shareholder of Nike is an alum and has ploughed money into the facilities (and some pretty wild uniforms). Their stadium is in a natural depression and the sound doesn't dissipate as it would normally, making it one of the hardest stadiums to go to.

One thing that I didn't say is that the football is often more entertaining, but less competitive.

You get some huge mismatches between players who'll go in the first round of the draft and those that'll be accountants/salesmen/whatever. It leads to spectacular plays, but you get more blowouts than the NFL.

Forget ticketmaster.   I was working in Vancouver and wanted to catch a game of my team the Seahawks.  I rang the stadium directly and explained I was a big fan and from England and would love to come to a game.  They couldnt do enough for me.  They sorted me a tickets which I was to pick up from the stadium on the day.  When I got there, the ticket manager met me and took me into the stadium.   He introduced me to the Seagals cheerleaders and got club tickets on the 50 yard line.

Unbelievable experience, never forget how I was looked after.  Guess they didnt get too many UK fans and want to show what they can do.  Nothing lost with a phone call.  Good luck

Well, yeah, lots of space at a Seahawks' game.

You could've suited up and got a game

thats a great story swardean

fair play

what game was it out of interest?

HM -  i was always under the impression College tickets are harder to get?! than NFL

Thanks for the input guys, I'm going to do some research at the weekend

HM -  i was always under the impression College tickets are harder to get?! than NFL

For the big rivalry games for big teams, yeah. You might as well forget it if you want to see USC v Notre Dame before 2016, for example.

Otherwise the rule of thumb is that you need to think about it weeks, and sometimes months in advance, as opposed to the days in advance for the NFL.

Incidentally, Sports Illustrated reckons that the world's biggest sporting rivalry is the Michigan Wolverines against the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Buckeyes is Americaspeak for conkers by the way.

As Swardean has stated your best bet is to phone the stadiums and ask to talk to the ticket managers. Explain you are coming over from the UK and are a big fan of the team (helps to do this), and they bend over backwards to help you.
Became a close friend of the senior ticket manager at the Browns and go over to see them when I can (free tickets). Also managed to get into a Thanksgiving game at Dallas (saw Aikman v Marino).
Cowboys staff were terrific and came out to meet us. Have also got into Cardinal games and into the NY Jets where they put us in the VIP section among actors etc.

Went to my first game last year NYG vs MD deffo get there early and enjoy the tailgating outside the stadium,we got our tickets outside the stadium off the touts for roughley 60% of the actual ticket price about 20mins before kick off