A guide, from the record
When are college football tickets cheapest?
Usually in the last week before kickoff. In Birch's record, prices fell fastest in the final seven days.
In that last week, the get-in price moved down on 39 of 64 mornings and up on 19. More than four weeks out, it barely moved on average.
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.
What the last week looked like
Nine games Birch reads were played on Sat, Sep 26. Birch read each one every morning from Tue, Sep 22 to game day.
- Seven of the nine were cheaper on game morning than four days earlier.
- Four of the nine hit their lowest price on game morning itself.
- The biggest fall: Texas A&M at LSU, down $69 from $118 (-58%). Next: Oklahoma at Georgia, down $58 from $164 (-35%), and South Carolina at Alabama, down $32 from $74 (-43%).
Seven games Birch has read more than once kick off Sat, Oct 3, compared here with the first morning Birch read each.
- All seven are cheaper now than when Birch first read them. The average move is -31%.
- Five of the seven are at their lowest price yet on Tue, Sep 29.
- Auburn at Tennessee is down $137 from $271 (-51%). Vanderbilt at Georgia is down $48 from $107 (-45%).
How fast prices move, by days to kickoff
Far out, the price mostly waits.
Each row counts one game's price from one morning to the next, across 76 games Birch has read on more than one morning since Tue, Sep 22.
| Days to kickoff | Mornings compared | Down | Up | Unchanged | Average move |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 7 | 64 | 39 | 19 | 6 | -5% |
| 8 to 14 | 45 | 23 | 16 | 6 | -1% |
| 15 to 28 | 98 | 46 | 35 | 17 | -1% |
| More than 28 | 298 | 115 | 84 | 99 | 0% |
More than four weeks out, 99 of 298 mornings showed no change at all. The price mostly waits, and so can you.
When the last week does not pay
The drop is a pattern, not a rule. Two of the nine Sat, Sep 26 games got more expensive.
- Texas at Tennessee rose to $411 on game morning, up $50 from $361. The biggest games can climb as the day nears.
- Tulsa Golden Hurricane at Arkansas rose to $42 on game morning, up $26 from $16. A price that low has little room left to fall.
The day before a game is close to a coin toss. From the eve to game morning, five of the nine fell and four rose.
Is there a cheapest day of the week to buy?
Not that Birch can see yet. Some mornings most prices fell, others most rose. Eight mornings is too few to call a weekday pattern. We will say so here when the record is long enough.
Friday games are a different question. On Tue, Sep 29, the 25 Friday-night games had a middle get-in price of $43. The 261 Saturday games had $60. Most Friday games are big-conference matchups, so this is not only tune-ups. It is one morning, so treat it as a first look.
What Birch cannot tell you yet
The cheapest month of the season
Birch started reading on Tue, Sep 22. A season-long answer needs a season of history.
Seats together
The get-in price is the single cheapest seat. Four seats in one row can move differently.
Rivalry and senior-day effects
Those games happen once a year. Birch has not read one through its last week yet.
The figures above count the games Birch has read since Tue, Sep 22. The 220 games it started reading on Tue, Sep 29, when it widened to every big conference, are not in them yet.
How to use this
Decide your number early. Let the price come to you.
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, often in the last week, when prices move most.
If you need seats together, or the game is a big rivalry, buying earlier can be the safer call. Should you buy now or wait covers that choice in full.
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. "Days to kickoff" counts from the morning of a reading to the game's date. Birch reads prices, not seats, and makes no claims about sell-outs or inventory.