A guide, from the record
Is $180 a lot for a football ticket?
Usually, yes. The middle game Birch tracks had a cheapest seat of $59 on Tue, Sep 29.
That is the middle of 287 games, and 250 of them cost $180 or less. For the biggest games, $180 is normal.
Watch your team's price
Name your team and the price you want to pay. Birch emails you when a game drops below it. One email to start, one click to stop.
The rest of the answer
- The average was $90. A few very expensive games pull it above the middle price.
- 37 of the 287 games cost more than $180, about one in eight. None of them is a game against a smaller school.
- The most expensive game read $832: Miami at Notre Dame, Sat, Nov 7. Next came Texas at Texas A&M at $501 and Michigan at Ohio State at $458.
Where $180 sits on the board
Most games read well under it.
| Get-in price, Tue, Sep 29 | Games |
|---|---|
| Under $100 | 205 |
| $100 to $180 | 45 |
| $181 to $300 | 25 |
| Over $300 | 12 |
The cheapest seats are not only at the tune-ups. Some big-conference games read very low: Minnesota at Purdue at $6 and South Carolina at Arkansas at $6. The 21 games against smaller schools had a middle price of $24.
The most expensive are the games fans circle in August. Beyond the three above: Ohio State at Indiana $397, Notre Dame at BYU $396, Alabama at Tennessee $385.
It depends on the conference
The same $180 buys very different things by conference. Middle get-in price on Tue, Sep 29, by the home team's conference.
| Home team’s conference | Games | Middle price | Over $180 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEC | 59 | $122 | 19 |
| Big Ten | 71 | $63 | 10 |
| Big 12 | 65 | $60 | 4 |
| ACC | 65 | $41 | 3 |
Games between two teams Birch tracks only. Notre Dame and UConn home games and games against smaller schools are left out of this table, and counted everywhere else.
So $180 is a middling price for a big SEC game and a high price for most ACC games. The ACC's most expensive game was Florida State at Miami, Sat, Oct 17, at $215.
The games right around $180
A fan deciding whether $180 is too much is usually looking at one of these. Prices read on Tue, Sep 29.
- Auburn at Georgia, Sat, Oct 17$169
- Virginia at Virginia Tech, Sat, Nov 28$176
- Tennessee at Texas A&M, Sat, Nov 14$185
- Kansas at Kansas State, Sat, Oct 17$186
- Oklahoma at Florida, Sat, Nov 7$187
- LSU at Kentucky, Sat, Oct 10$189
- Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech, Sat, Oct 17$190
- Iowa at Northwestern, Sat, Nov 7$190
A price is one morning. The record is eight.
A ticket that costs $180 today can cost a lot more or a lot less a week later. Birch has read 67 of these games on more than one morning, since Tue, Sep 22, so the movement below comes from those. 8 of them have been both above and below $180.
- Auburn at Tennessee (Sat, Oct 3) went from $271 to $134.
- Tennessee at South Carolina (Sat, Oct 24) went from $192 to $112.
- Missouri at Ole Miss (Sat, Oct 17) went from $178 to $136.
- Florida at Florida State (Fri, Nov 27) went from $173 to $191.
For the middle game of the 67, the gap between its highest and lowest reading so far is $21. For the big games the gap can be much wider. Texas at LSU (Sat, Nov 14) has read between $293 and $496.
Across those 67 games, the average get-in price was $155 on the first morning Birch read them and $139 on Tue, Sep 29. Prices on this board go both ways. A few mornings is not a trend, and Birch does not claim one.
The other 220 games joined the record more recently and have one morning so far. This section adds them as the mornings build up.
When $180 is a fair price to pay
It is a game that rarely goes under $180
16 games Birch has read more than once have not been at or under $180 on any morning. For those, waiting for a much lower number may mean waiting a long time.
You need seats together
Birch reads the single cheapest seat. It says nothing about finding two or four seats next to each other, and those usually cost more.
The date is close and you have to be there
The record shows how prices have moved so far. It cannot tell you what they will do in the last few days before a game.
If the question is when to buy rather than how much, should you buy now or wait is the longer answer. Every game and every number is on the games list.
How to use this without checking a screen every day
Choose the price that feels right to you.
Say $150 for the game you are thinking of paying $180 for. Put your team and that number into Birch. Every morning Birch reads the prices, and it emails you when a game drops below your number.
Birch is built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is why the reading happens every morning without anyone remembering to do it.
What Birch reads: each morning, the lowest listed price for each game on the team page of each of the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 teams, plus Notre Dame and UConn. A game between two of those teams is counted once. Birch reads prices, not seats, and makes no claims about sell-outs or inventory.