GETTY Deebo Samuel #19 of the San Francisco 49ers runs with the ball against Tyler Hall #33 of the Los Angeles Rams in the fourth quarter at SoFi Stadium on January 09, 2022.
The San Francisco 49ers are getting a rematch against the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship game.
Despite the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ best efforts to mount a 27-3 comeback, the Rams walked out with a win to host the NFC Championship at SoFi Stadium and welcome the Niners. But something peculiar happened before the Buccaneers mounted their come back.
The Athletic reporter David Lombardi noticed that not only were the Rams preparing ticket sales for the NFC Championship, but that the franchise is attempting to prevent another 49er faithful takeover from happening after San Francisco fans showed up in a big way in Week 18.
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.
IMO pathetic and also premature — LA isn’t even in the title game yet
It’s a rough look, especially since it likely won’t matter too much according to Lombardi’s response to a Niners fan commenting on the situation.
“I believe measures like this tend to be counterproductive, mainly because of the reason Kenny outlines: There are so many 49ers fans in LA area, and now those fans are going to be even more motivated to buy tickets for the game. Because fans take this ‘takeover’ stuff personally.”
It will be interesting to see if the Rams’ unorthodox approach to preventing a raucous 49ers home crowd will work, but it’s hard seeing it prevailing for the reasons mentioned above.
UPDATE: The Mercury News is now reporting that the ticket restrictions are no longer in replace.
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49ers Fans Sound Off on Rams
As one might expect, the 49er faithful is not impressed by the restrictions. In the replies to Lombardi’s tweet, many of the San Francisco fanbase flamed the Rams organization.
“Just arrogance of this franchise is just terrible,” @martyw82 said.
Another user pointed out that this isn’t the first time the 49ers have been in an NFC Championship that the opposing hosts tried to prevent the fanbase from attending in huge numbers.
@LombardiHimself Sounds familiar
Like Lombardi and many others, @MP_Dealin isn’t worried.
“Most of these people will put these tickets on the secondary markets anyways. LA also has a large 49er fan base. It’s not gonna slow us down.”
Another user named what he considers to be the “funny” part of the whole situation.
“The funny part here is that the Rams believe they have more fans in LA than the 49ers do,” @therichreport Tweeted.
The Rams may try to prevent a takeover of Week 18’s scale, and they may even succeed, but the 49er faithful is not currently worried.
Week 18’s Sea of Red
The 49ers’ 27-24 comeback win over the Rams in Week 18 is one that will be remembered fondly for a long time after a 17-point comeback and game-winning field goal from 49ers kicker Robbie Gould. Part of that love has to include how many 49ers fans attended the game.
Even local media observed and commented on the amount of 49ers fans that made it to LA and SoFi Stadium, with NBC Sports reporter Matt Maiocco sharing his own view from the Niners’ regular-season finale.
A lot of red at SoFi Stadium.
Neither fanbase will know if this coming Sunday’s rematch will feature a repeat in terms of environment, but it’s hard to imagine the NFC Championship crowd in Los Angeles without a significant amount of fans in red.