With the home team not playing in the Grey Cup, thousands of tickets are up for sale online for Sunday's big game.

Katie Boyd and her family, longtime Edmonton Eskimos season ticket holders, bought 12 tickets at $200 each when they went on sale back in June.

Now they're trying to sell six tickets on Kijiji. Boyd said she has already knocked the price down from $200 to $180, and so far no takers.

'No Eskimos fan wants to see Calgary win'

"I haven't had any luck," said Boyd. "No Eskimos fan wants to see Calgary win the Grey Cup at their stadium, in their hometown."

Boyd said one reason for the lack of interest may be the number of Edmonton season ticket holders who bought tickets initially hoping their team would reach the final.

In a news release earlier this summer, organizers said 51,000 tickets had been sold back in June.

A week later, they said only 4,000 seats were still available.

The Eskimos finished the season with a 9-9 record, in last place in the Western Division. Now it appears many ticket buyers want to become sellers.

Duane Vienneau, executive director for Grey Cup 2018, was unavailable to comment about the ticket situation.

'Oh, great, it's Calgary'

Kijiji's website listed almost 1,600 ads selling tickets, for prices ranging from $100 each to several thousand dollars.

"From a seller's standpoint though, I thought, 'Oh, great, it's Calgary,' " Boyd said. "Only three hours away. There's probably going to be tons of fans coming. We shouldn't have a problem selling tickets. And apparently that's not the case."

Grey Cup organizers say they're concentrating on selling out Sunday's game, and are nearing that goal.

"Our focus has been on making sure that we push to put on the best event at the game on Sunday," said Scott Murray, vice-president of ticket sales and service for the Eskimos.

Murray and his staff are in charge of selling tickets for Sunday's game.

"I think if you come downtown, or will be down there, you'll see that there's a pretty good festival side," Murray said. "It's going to be a great week from a standpoint of all the events going on."

There are still four days left before the game, and the forecast for Sunday is -1 C and sunny. So there could be a late push to buy tickets.

'It's the Super Bowl of Canada'

"The Grey Cup is a different kind of event," said Dan Mason, professor of sport management at the University of Alberta.

He said it's understandable that many Eskimos fans aren't going to Sunday's game.

"You need to set aside a block of time to go to an event like the Grey Cup. And if you're favourite team isn't playing, then it makes it much harder to try and make that work."

Still, the Grey Cup is a long-standing Canadian tradition, he said, and many people enjoy attending regardless of which teams are playing.

"It's the Super Bowl of Canada. And it's something where you might see people who otherwise wouldn't necessarily go to an Eskimos game might be interested in attending the event, especially if it's in their home city."

The Calgary Stampeders face the Ottawa Redblacks on Sunday starting at 4 p.m.