Its getting to be that season, when the helmets crash and dreams are realized or crushed. The drama of football is best experienced live, where you can heard the roar of the crowd and cheer on your team. Trying to purchase football tickets at the box office can be a hit or miss situation. What if the game sells out? How are you guaranteed to get the seats you want? Thanks to the Internet, there are many more alternatives for purchasing tickets for sports ahead of time.

One way is to go through a broker. There are several options on this front. The NFL runs its own ticket exchange, which allows you to purchase tickets at your leisure ahead of time. You also have many options for choosing where you sit. Its also officially licensed by the NFL, so you know your tickets haven't changed hands too many times, thereby avoiding excessive surcharges. This means that you will be paying a flat rate, so don't expect any deals, but it means that if there is a hot game, you won't get steamrolled for it. You can also go through a 3rd party broker. These operate somewhat like a baseball ticket broker in that ticket holders buy and sell their tickets based on demand for the seats. With this method you are more likely to find deals, but the prices are going to be a lot more volatile, and you are not going to have a stable price. If a game is going to be hot, you're going to pay for it.

There exists a brand new form of ticket buying on the Internet, called optioning. It is very similar to how stocks are optioned. If you retain stock options, it means that after a certain frame of time has passed, you can choose to either exercise or hold your option to sell the stock. Well, with ticket optioning, you pay a nominal fee to reserve your purchase of a ticket. If, the closer to the game it gets, you want to buy the ticket for yourself, you can. If you want to sell the ticket, you can also. Again, you run many risks with this game. The volatility of the market could be your end. This isn't like going to a stand to find a baseball ticket for sale, its as risky as playing the stock market.

Finally, don't over think it, don't be afraid to check the classified ads. There are still people out there who have season tickets and for one reason or another do not want to sell their tickets online. Variety will be limited, but you never know what you might find.