Jan 16, 2026
3 min read
Has the overseas market lost control over the price of tickets?
Indiana vs Miami: $3,500 buyout price...is that a good thing or a thing?
What exactly is a subscription these days?It's not just about its monetary value or its ability to get you into the gates of a big game, although that is clearly its main purpose.
A ticket is also an asset, albeit one of very limited use and expiring quickly, but an asset nonetheless.
Take this year's national championship game for example.Ticket prices are insanely high to attend a game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, for obvious reasons - the game is in Miami, home to one of two teams, and the other team, Indiana, is in the early years of college football.You literally couldn't write a more perfect pairing of ticket prices in the stratosphere, and the market reacted accordingly.
Per GameTime, the lowest price to get into the Hard Rock to watch the Hoosiers and 'Canes is a $2,700 ticket.That's down from $3,500 the day after Indiana won the Peach Bowl to clinch the trip to Miami, yes, but it's still about $1,000 more than the Ohio State-Notre Dame championship game cost at this point last year.
(Also remember: it's only $2,700 to get in the door. If you want to be close to the field, you're looking at double, triple or more. Hope you saved your money!)
Ticket prices are always an interesting exercise in what exactly the market will bear and how much fans can expect to pay to support their team.It is not uncommon to see ticket prices lower than the price of a hamburger to get into various bowl games, baseball games, and even NFL games.
However, the other side of this equation is that the College Football Playoff committee is now finding that fans are willing to pay around three thousand dollars for a ticket.It doesn't matter if you avoid the circumstances described above;You can watch the game at home and collect a lot of money.
Which brings us to the next topic of weekend tickets: the Seattle Seahawks are planning a secondary ticket market.When the Seahawks discovered that some tickets on the secondary market belonged to season tickets, they sent a letter to the seller with a polite but neutral message:Get those tickets off the market or you risk 2026 season tickets.
Seahawks season ticket holders reselling their playoff tickets are getting early warning.Great job, @Seahawks pic.twitter.com/AmaULTNBMa
— Evan Hill (@EvanHillHB) January 9, 2026
If you think that's too draconian a sanction, may we introduce you to the Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters tournament.If you are lucky enough to win the lottery for a tournament badge and decide to sell that badge (which you can usually do for more than 20 times the ticket price), you risk a lifetime ban.
Is this fair?Maybe yes, maybe not, but it's definitely legal and it's likely that more teams will start using this method of ticket control in the future.This is already a rule in various European football leagues, where fans of the opposing team cannot buy tickets in the home section.(This is done both for the safety of the visitors and the unity of the home fans, but the point remains.)
So this leaves the ticket market with two opposing forces acting on both sides - do you have a free market - does that mean more tickets but higher prices?
