Ticket Price for Big 12 Premium Game Often Tops $100

What price will a fan pay for a ticket to a premium game? In Big 12 country, it's a small fortune.

The Oregonian conducted a survey of ticket prices nationwide, examining the face value of the most expensive and cheapest single-game ticket to games involving Bowl Championship Series teams. The Big 12's average price of $84.17 blew past the competition.

Games involving Big 12 teams occupied to top five spots:

• $125 for the Nov. 27 Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game in Stillwater.
• $110 for the Oct. 2 Oklahoma-Texas game at the Cotton Bowl.
• $100 for the Nov. 25 Texas A&M-Texas game in Austin.
• $100 for the Oct. 23 Nebraska-Oklahoma State game in Stillwater.
• $95 for the Sept. 18 Texas-Texas Tech game in Lubbock.

Granted, this is merely the face value price of tickets. Just to have an opportunity to purchase such a ticket involves a donation of thousands of dollars to a university or its athletic department. That swings open the door to prime seats.

Example: Oklahoma-Texas, technically a home game for the Sooners this season, requires a $394 Oklahoma season ticket, $1,300 donation to Oklahoma and $110 ticket to the game in the Cotton Bowl — a total of $1,804.

The Oregonian did not factor in such donations. Its survey simply examined the face value of a ticket, which often indicates the relative popularity of a team or matchup — or a school's willingness to leverage it.

The Pacific 10 commanded an average price of $61.90 for a seat to a premium game, followed by the Southeastern ($60.50), Big Ten ($60.09), Atlantic Coast ($49.33) and Big East ($45.63).

By comparison, the average price for an NFL game is $74.99.

The Oregonian defines the cheapest ticket as the least expensive single-game adult ticket for a low-demand game. The Pac-10 wins this category with a price of $27.60, followed by the ACC ($31.92), Big East ($35.25), SEC ($38), Big 12 ($41.83) and Big Ten ($46.27).

The Oregonian breaks down the data by conference and compares it to 2008, when the newspaper last conducted the survey. Here are the links to the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC.

There are also links to sortable columns for premium and cheap seats with comparisons to 2008.

Comments

[Sam]

Longwhorn Conference schools grubbing shamelessly for every penny? I'm shocked, sir. Shocked.

[yumtoad]

Honestly, I doubt this is nothing more than supply and demand. The Big XII does have passionate fans, somewhere between the Big Ten and the SEC, but many of their stadiums are kinda small. Of those top five, only Texas has a truly large stadium. (105K) The cotton bowl is midsized at 95K (for that game anyway) Tech and OSU stadiums are in the 55K range. Big games, small areas, high ticket prices.

This also makes one think that the upcoming TV contracts for the Pac 10 are going to be underwhelming. CF just doesn't generate interest.