SAN JOSE — It’s 2,286 miles to Levi’s Stadium from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
It’s even farther — 2,562 miles — from Clemson, South Carolina.
Distance is among the factors being cited for plummeting ticket prices for Monday night’s college football championship game at Levi’s Stadium. At midweek, the get-in price was $150 on the secondary market, which includes sites such as StubHub and TicketGeek.
As of Saturday morning, that number had plummeted even further.
Last year the get-in price peaked at $1,700, the highest in the five-year history of the College Football Playoff.
Still, College Football Playoff representatives were expressing no concern Thursday.
“The fact is, it’s a long way from the two schools,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock said. “But there will be 40,000 of their fans here Monday night soaking it all up and loving every minute of it.”
The other 30,000 seats at Levi’s Stadium remain in question, but Hancock really might not be whistling past the graveyard.
The fact is, last year was an anomaly with its $1,700 get-in price for Alabama versus Georgia. The game was held in Atlanta, an easy trip for fans of both schools. Or as Hancock put it, one team was “playing in its own backyard and its fans could drive across town.”
The current numbers for Monday night’s game are pretty much in line with two other games that have been played since 2015 when the CFP debuted. In fact, this game is outpacing the 2016 game between Alabama and Clemson (yes, them again) in Glendale, Arizona.
“The average prices are actually up 71 percent from 2016 when they met in Glendale,” said Adam Budelli, a StubHub spokesperson.
The average price — in excess of $1,000 on Wednesday — had dropped to $733 by midday Thursday, but was still well ahead of the $593 average for 2016 in Glendale. And it was within shouting distance of the $807 average in 2015 for Ohio State-Oregon in Arlington, Texas. In 2017, it was $1,349 when Alabama and Clemson (yes, again) played in Tampa.
Ticket prices typically decrease as kickoff grows closer, but that has its own silver lining. Lower prices lead to higher sales, and lower prices have been in the news this week.
“As more and more media and local newspapers pick up this information of where the ticket prices are, the local community now might have an affordable championship game,” said Budelli, the StubHub spokesperson. “A lot of fans might have been scared away when they heard the CFP was coming because prices may have been a little out of their budget.”
Budelli said 9,000 tickets remained on StubHub as of Thursday afternoon. The least-expensive was $114 (in the nosebleed section) and $185 on the lower level.
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Nearly 30 percent of tickets sold on StubHub were from buyers in California, Budelli said, with almost 15 percent from the Bay Area.
Given the nature of the market — the Bay Area is no hotbed for college sports — and the current weather forecast (rain and more rain), those numbers might not grow much.
Whatever the numbers, Hancock said the CFP will have met a major objective just by being here. This is the first game to be played in California.
“The West Coast is a place we need to be,” Hancock said. “It’s one of the many points on the compass where we wanted to be.
“Every year is going to be different,” he added, referring to ticket sales and the like. “This one in a world-class stadium with an awesome number of people in the stands watching the best two teams in college football is something we’re proud of.”
