For the second time in Playoff history, the semifinal in Miami Gardens is pretty cheap.
Alabama and Oklahoma meet in the Orange Bowl Playoff semifinal on Dec. 29. It’s the biggest blockbuster game of the year. It has the two QBs who just squared off in one of the best Heisman races ever, Oklahoma’s offense going up against Bama’s defense, and all of the huge stakes associated with any Playoff game.
You’d think ticket prices would be through the roof. But they’re not.
On StubHub, the get-in price was $59 on Sunday, less than a week before kickoff. That might fluctuate, but there are plenty of upper-bowl seats available for between $60 and $70.
That’s unusually cheap. It’s the cheapest get-in price for an Alabama bowl game in the last decade, including various Playoff games, according to the founder of ticket search engine TicketIQ.
It’s also less than it costs to get into the other semifinal, the Cotton Bowl, between Clemson and Notre Dame in North Texas. The starting point there is $115, with almost everything at least in the $130s. But even that’s not huge by major sporting-event standards.
Playoff tickets are expensive, of course, but they’ve tended to be a lot less pricy than tickets for other big-time American championships.
TicketIQ says these were the get-in prices for previous Playoff semis:
2014
- Rose Bowl $157
- Sugar Bowl: $132
2015
- Cotton Bowl: $79
- Orange Bowl: $32
2016
- Fiesta Bowl: $61
- Peach Bowl: $191
2017
- Rose Bowl: $306
- Sugar Bowl $108
2018
- Cotton Bowl: $166
- Orange Bowl: $70
Compare these to the National Championship numbers, and there’s a pretty big gap:
- 2014: Average $479, Get-in $251
- 2015: Average $858, Get-in $317
- 2016: Average $610, Get-in $202
- 2017: Average $2,898, Get-in $1,737
- 2018: Average $4,040, Get-in $1,752
Sure, some of these are up there, but they’re nowhere near some of the other championships this year. The 2018 Super Bowl averaged $7,277 per ticket, 2018 World Series tickets in Boston went for an average of $1,618, and NBA Finals ones in Oakland were $1,720 on average a pop.
It’s hard to immediately identify trends or why some games were so much more expensive than others. A few possibilities jump out, though.
The 2014 season’s Sugar Bowl, 2016’s Peach, and 2017’s Sugar Bowl were all Alabama games within reasonable driving distance of Tuscaloosa. It would make sense that the cheapest Tide semifinal ticket so far was for the 2015 Cotton Bowl, the farthest distance they (and many of their fans) have yet had to travel to get to a semifinal.
2017’s Rose Bowl, the most expensive Playoff semifinal ticket so far, was Georgia’s first appearance in the event. Dawgs fans took over Pasadena for that game, and flights from Atlanta were around $1,000 round-trip by the time the game came around. UGA fan demand certainly could have driven up the number for that game.
The last time Oklahoma played in the Orange Bowl was after the 2015 season against Clemson, and that turned out to be the cheapest Playoff ticket yet. Miami is a 22ish-hour drive for Norman, so tons of Sooners fans will have to fly there. It’s 12 hours from Tuscaloosa, which is more than Tide fans have had to go for the Sugar or Peach semi. Despite the hugeness of this game, it’s not really convenient for either fanbase.
So, how do you fix the convenience issue? Well, having these semifinals on campus sites would be one way! Look, I get how much more money having these games in bigger venues makes, but how cool would it be for these huge matchups to be hosted in college towns? And that way, you can pretty much guarantee a great crowd turnout. Sounds like a good solution to me!