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Sports Blog: Enjoy the Game without Breaking the Bank

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Illinois chapter.

With the lure of online shopping, nights out at the bars and financing spring break trips, a lot of collegiettes are hurting for cash these days. This leaves us ladies with limited funds to spend on sporting events. However, there are some cheap and even free options for sports fans to get their fix without breaking the bank.

What better way watch games for free than to look right on our own campus?

If you don’t feel like dropping dough on a basketball game, check out the women’s basketball team – games are free! The female Fighting Illini team has one more home game before they head into the Big Ten Tournament, so give them a great send off Monday February 20th at 6:30 p.m.


All the Olympics TV promos getting you pumped for the summer Games? Stop by Huff Hall to watch the women’s gymnastics team take on Michigan State at their ‘Pink Meet’ February 17th, at 7 p.m.  Admission is free.
If you are dying to see our Illini football team redeem themselves for their less than stellar performance towards the end of last season, mark your calendars for April 14th to watch the free Orange and Blue scrimmage game. You can check out our (hopefully) improved team led by our new head coach, Tim Beckman.


Looking to get off campus for your sports fix?

Though I am a huge Cardinals fan, you can’t find better deals than the College Discount days at Wrigley. Depending on the day, you can get tickets in the Bug Light Bleachers for as low as $10! The discounts aren’t available yet, but check into this website: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/chc/ticketing/college_discount.jsp to find great promo codes and deals. Last year I used this site to get Cubs/Cards tickets for under $30 definitely within in my college budget.

If you are looking for more winter sports like hockey, www.seatgeek.com is a web site that scans all different ticket websites to find you the best deals. I found tickets to Blackhawks games for as low as 30 dollars!  If you don’t have time to travel up to Chicago, the Jr. Blues, a Jr. A Hockey team in Springfield, play just an hour and a half away and have home games March 16th and 17th.


If you are looking for some basketball bang for your buck, check out tickets for the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis this March. Stubhub.com has tickets still available and depending on the session you go to, tickets are as cheap as $17. Hopefully U of I takes care of business, but if not, at least you can scout out Big 10 teams to fill out your March Madness Bracket! 

Emily Cleary is a 22-year-old news-editorial journalism major hoping to work in the fashion industry, whether that be in editorial, marketing, PR or event planning is TBD. With internships at Teen Vogue and StyleChicago.com, it's clear that she is a fashion fanatic. When she's not studying (she's the former VP of her sorority, Delta Delta Delta), writing for various publications or attending meetings for clubs like Business Careers in Entertainment Club, Society of Professional Journalists, The Business of Fashion Club, or for her role as the Assistant Editor of the Arts & Entertainment section of her school's magazine, she's doing something else; you will never find her sitting still. She loves: running (you know those crazy cross-country runners...), attending concerts and music festivals, shopping (of course), hanging out with friends, visiting her family at home, traveling (she studied abroad in London when she was able to travel all over Europe), taking pictures, tweeting, reading stacks and stacks of magazines and newspapers while drinking a Starbuck's caramel light frappacino, blogs and the occasional blogging, eating anything chocolate and conjuring up her next big project. Living just 20 minutes outside of Chicago, she's excited to live there after graduation, but would love to spend some time in New York, LA, London or Paris (she speaks French)!