The Steelers' loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars Monday night did more than drop them in the division standings.

It dropped them as an investment.

The stock market-like drop occurred at TicketReserve, an online brokerage where subscribers buy and sell the right to purchase tickets to high-profile games at face value months in advance.

TicketReserve gives fans the chance to follow their teams to big-name events like the Super Bowl, the Final Four or the Stanley Cup playoffs. You purchase a "FanForward" for your team and, if it makes it, you get to buy the hard-to-get tickets for the price that's printed on them -- rather than having to deal with scalpers or agencies that inflate the costs.

TicketReserve.com, born on the Internet five years ago, is the brainchild of Rick Harmon, a Chicago sports fan whose model was the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. But instead of dealing in corn, wheat and beans, TicketReserve is marketing Colts, Wolverines and Bruins.

"Rick recognized that for the premier events, a lot of real fans were getting run out of the game, and it was becoming [the private domain of] the guys on Wall Street," said Andy Leach, an executive vice president with TicketReserve.

"For many people, the Super Bowl is not just a big generic party event, like it is for corporate America. For the Steelers fans who work for a living in a steel mill or driving a school bus, the game is more meaningful if their team is in it.

"But when you find out your team has gotten there, it's too late for you to get a ticket."

Sure, the average fan might be able to get tickets from scalpers on eBay or through ticket brokers such as StubHub or RazorGator. But that can be costly.

At RazorGator, for example, you can buy a ticket to Super Bowl XLI, scheduled for Feb. 4 at Dolphins Stadium in Miami. For $2,178, you can get a seat in the end zone; a midfield ticket goes for $5,410.

"We're the anti-StubHub or anti-RazorGator," Mr. Leach said. "Not that they're bad guys or bad business models. But that's not what we do.

"We didn't want to be in the business of scalping the ticket. We wanted to be in the business of allowing fans to come in in advance and secure their teams in these events."

Here's how it works: At the start of any given sport season, TicketReserve makes available what it calls "FanForwards," contracts that guarantee the holder the right to purchase face-value tickets to the major championship games.

Customers who get there early can gobble them up for the minimum price, which varies depending upon the sport, the team and the event.

Then, during the course of the season, these FanForwards can be resold by the customer. Whether the customer makes or loses money on the deal usually depends upon how the team does.

For example, if you were one of the early buyers in FanForwards for the Steelers in Super Bowl XLI, you paid $50. (Other teams' FanForwards might cost more or less, depending on their popularity.)

Now, if you're confident the black-and-gold will return to the Super Bowl, you can just sit back and wait for the end of the AFC Championship Game, at which time you can buy a Super Bowl ticket for the face value of $600 or so.

But that's presuming the Steelers win the AFC Championship Game. If, heaven forbid, they don't, you're out the $50 that you invested in the FanForward.

TicketReserve's Web site compares the purchase of a FanForward for your favorite team to the purchase of auto insurance. You might wind up being very glad you bought it. But if you don't have an accident, you don't get your money back.

So, let's say you get nervous during the season. Maybe the Steelers won't repeat. Well, then you put your FanForward up for sale and see what the market will bear.

Maybe there's another Steelers fan out there who still holds out hope. And he buys your FanForward for $100.

You've made $50 profit. The new owner of the FanForward has spent $100, still a lot less than the ticket would cost from a scalper. And everybody's happy. (Including TicketReserve, which makes a small commission on both ends of the transaction.)

"We're not in the business of setting prices," Mr. Leach said. "We're an enabling platform. The marketplace sets the prices."

The downside, of course, comes at the end of the season, when the Steelers don't reach the Super Bowl. (This is all hypothetical.) Then, those who hold Steelers FanForwards lose their investment.

"It's kind of fun," Mr. Leach said. "As long as you don't spend more than you can afford, people have fun with it."

The market is not a place for the timid. As this year's NFL season approached, Steelers FanForwards for the Super Bowl purchased for $50 were going for $355. Then quarterback Ben Roethlisberger cracked himself up in a motorcycle accident in June.

The price of Steelers FanForwards plummeted to $226.

Fortunately, Roethlisberger recovered. And so did the Steelers FanForwards, which bounced back up to $325.

"That's up over 500 percent [of the original investment]," Mr. Leach said.

Then the Steelers went to Jacksonville and lost, 9-0. Sure enough, Steelers FanForwards likewise lost, falling to $251. (And Cincinnati Bengals FanForwards jumped $50 to $250.)

Of course, not everybody buying up FanForwards is a fan. Some customers are just looking for good investments: buy low, sell high.

"There are two primary audiences," Mr. Leach said. "A good 80 to 85 percent are just fans, and they just want to make sure that they see their team in the event. But the other 15 to 20 percent are what we would call a trader.

"Last year, Steelers were issued at $120 and traded up to $1,400 when the Steelers were up by two touchdowns in the AFC Championship Game. There is an opportunity to do well."

TicketReserve, which has grown to have 30 full-time employees working out of its office in Deerfield, Ill., spends much of its time working with the various sports leagues and associations, trying to line up tickets to the big events. (They don't purchase tickets from the general public.) Most leagues, Mr. Leach said, have embraced them.

"In the NCAA Final Four market last year, we contracted directly with the NCAA for a ticket allocation of 1,000," he said. "Then we create the FanForwards off of that.

"We did a very extensive and exhaustive legal analysis. In terms of anti-scalping laws, we went before the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory bodies to ensure that what we're doing is kosher. We got all those approvals."

Still, not everyone is willing to play ball.

"The NFL, whom we love dearly, we do not have an official relationship with yet," Mr. Leach said. "We're talking with them, and they know what we do. [We] hope to get an NFL-sanctioned market at some point. They haven't come after us like we're a bad thing. They kind of like what we're doing.

"But the NFL likes [Super Bowl] tickets to be part of a package that includes travel and hotels, etc."

The NHL, he said, leaves the matter up to its individual teams. And Major League Baseball has so many variables -- the World Series venues depend upon which teams are playing -- that it isn't practical yet.

Still, there are enough big games in enough sports to make TicketReserve viable -- and profitable.

"We're still in our infancy," Mr. Leach said. "It's only been a couple of years and, yeah, we make money. But we're just beginning to hit our stride."

As more people become aware of what they're doing, he said, they expect to see even more tickets purchased this way. And the money changing hands isn't that much.

"[Customers] don't make a living off it," he said. "They make party money, maybe some beer money. It's fun.

"And they make great holiday gifts."