Ticket Brokers Seek More Than $1,000 For Gators-Sooners Game
The Tampa Tribune |By Ted Jackovics
December 8, 2008
TAMPA - Ticket brokers are asking more than $1,000 on average for the Florida Gators-Oklahoma Sooners national championship game on Jan. 8, the most expensive of bowl game tickets this season, a survey of 800 brokers by TicketCity.com reported this morning.
Brokers and fans seeking buyers for their Bowl Championship Series tickets online are asking an average of $1,078.29, compared with the $175 face value of the tickets for the game in Miami.
The Jan. 1 Rose Bowl between the University of Southern California and Penn State ranked second in price, with brokers asking an average of $420.36. Face value is $145 for the Pasadena, Calif., game.
The Outback Bowl in Tampa on New Year's Day between the University of Iowa and the University of South Carolina ranked 13th, with brokers asking an average of $149.96 a ticket.
Outback Bowl tickets remained available Monday morning at the face value of $65 each plus handling fees at Ticketmaster.com, the site linked from the Outback Bowl Web site.
The final bowl matchups were announced Sunday evening, long after some fans gambled on purchasing tickets in advance for bowl games where they thought their favorite teams were headed, ticketcity.com reported.
The average price this morning compared with last week increased for seven of the 25 bowls ticketcity.com analyzed and declined for the remaining 17.
Selling tickets for more than face value is legal throughout most of the United States, including Florida.
However, some savvy college football fans travel to a game banking on getting tickets for face value or even less from ticket scalpers outside the stadium just before game time, although that is unlikely to be the case for the BCS game between Florida and Oklahoma.
The ticketcity.com survey did not rank the St. Petersburg Bowl on Dec. 20, between the University of South Florida and the University of Memphis. Reservations for tickets in the USF section are available at gousfbulls.com through today.
Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at (813) 259-7817.