College Football Ticket Information
Come August, campuses all over the country will undergo massive changes in the atmosphere as school spirit fills the air in preparation for the 2017-18 college football season. While spirit and enthusiasm are atop the checklist for attending a college football game, perhaps one of the more unescapable items is the game day ticket. Ticket prices in college football are reliant on many factors including a team’s schedule, expected performance, and past performance.
The road to the 4th College Football Playoff is about to get underway, and fans from the nation's largest schools are clamoring for the best seats at the top games. Alabama leads the pack in terms of highest ticket prices, with the Crimson Tide coming in with an average ticket price of $213, driven in large part by their showing in the 2016 College Football Championship Game against Clemson. The Ohio State Buckeyes came in just behind Alabama with an average ticket price of $193, almost double the next highest Big Ten team, the Michigan Wolverines, who have an average ticket price of $103. In the Big 12, the Texas Longhorns take the lead with an average ticket price of $104; following closely behind in the Big 12 is the Oklahoma Sooners with a ticket price average of $103. With average ticket prices over $50, Baylor, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and West Virginia follow in the Big 12 conference.
Sports rivalries in general usually drive a ticket price up, but when it comes to rivalry games in the NCAA no sport comes close to replicating the hype surrounding games like the Red River Showdown, Iron Bowl, or Egg Bowl. When the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners head to Cotton Bowl Stadium for the Red River Showdown it not only creates a demand to close to triple both teams' average ticket price, but has also become one of the most expensive games of the season at $312 a seat. Other big rivalry games of the 2017 college football season that could see similar effects include Alabama vs. Tennessee, Army vs. Navy, and Florida vs. Georgia. If any of these big rivalries are on your 2017 college football check list securing a seat early is one of the best ways to keep the cost of attending at a reasonable price. The start of the college football season brings the top kickoff games like the Chick-fil-a Kickoff, which has a large average ticket price of $772 dollars and the Texas Kickoff Classic that has a lower ticket average of $146 for the upcoming 2017 games.
Ticket prices based on averages as of July 12, 2017