The Columbus Crew SC
Major League Soccer
The Columbus Crew SC is one of Major League Soccer’s 10 original franchises, beginning to play in Ohio’s capital city in 1996. The Crew play their home games at Mapfre Stadium, which is the first soccer specific stadium built for a professional club in the United States.
Mapfre Stadium has also been a regular site for the U.S. men’s soccer team, hosting 10 games since 2000, including World Cup qualifier matches for each of the four World Cups since the stadium opened in 1999.
The stadium is located roughly 2 miles from OSU’s campus, right next to the Ohio Expo Center and State Fairgrounds.
The MLS season begins in early March and extends through the summer into autumn. When classes begin on Aug. 25, the Crew still have three more home games on their 2015 schedule, with their final match of the season being played on Oct. 25 in Columbus.
Tickets are available to OSU students through D-Tix, Ohio State’s Discount Ticket Program. They are $13 and include a courtesy $5 food voucher to be used inside the stadium. Due to demand for such tickets, they are awarded via a lottery process. Students can register for the lottery approximately three weeks prior to the match on D-Tix website.
The Columbus Blue Jackets
National Hockey League
The Columbus Blue Jackets, of the National Hockey League, are one of two top-flight professional sports teams that call Ohio’s most-populated city home.
The Jackets play their 41 home games at Nationwide Arena, which is located in Downtown Columbus in an area of the city appropriately named “The Arena District.”
The 2015-16 NHL regular season begins on Oct. 7 and ends on April 9, 2016, which means while class is in session, there is plenty of hockey for students to watch.
The Jackets sport two 2014-15 All-Stars in forwards Ryan Johansen and Nick Foligno, as well as the 2014 Vezina Trophy winner for the league’s top goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky.
Students can easily make the 2.5-mile trip to Nationwide Arena by catching the Central Ohio Transit Authority’s No. 5 bus line, which runs all the way down Neil Avenue and makes a stop inside the Arena District. Two other bus lines, the No. 2, which runs up and down High Street, and No. 18, whose route includes a small segment of Neil Avenue, make stops very close to Nationwide Arena.
As with the Columbus Crew SC, OSU students can get discounted admission into Blue Jackets games with their BuckID through D-Tix. Tickets go on sale at the box office outside the arena one hour before the start of the game and can be purchased for $15 for an upper-bowl ticket or $25 for lower-bowl.
Columbus Clippers
Minor League Baseball
The Columbus Clippers are the Triple-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians and play their games at Huntington
Park, located shortly west of Nationwide Arena.
The Clippers’ schedule runs from mid-April to mid-September, with fan promotions for nearly every home game.
Huntington Park can be accessed on the same Nos. 2, 5 and 18 COTA bus lines as Nationwide Arena.
D-Tix offers tickets for select Clippers games for $8, which includes a $5 food and beverage voucher. Tickets can also be purchased at the stadium box office for $7 for a bleacher seat to $15 for a box seat.
The Clippers are set to begin a six-game homestand the weekend after classes begin.
