Indiana and Notre Dame will be facing each other in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
The game will be in South Bend on Friday, December 20th, and will be the first time the two have faced each other since 1991. That along with the stakes of the game has many people looking to score tickets to try and see the spectacle in person.
It’s a home game for Notre Dame, which means they control the tickets for the game. Notre Dame Stadium’s capacity is 77,622 and the school has allotted 3,500 tickets for the IU Athletic Department to sell to its fan base. However, IU Athletics spokesman Jeremy Gray says about 25 percent of those tickets are already automatically spoken for.
“Those tickets are for members of the band as well as the relatives of the players themselves,” he said on WISH-TV. “The rest will be put into a lottery.”
That lottery will be for students to take part in as well as alumni and any IU fans looking to attend. Gray said the chances of scoring tickets will be better for students who have attended more games during the regular season.
“We actually have the scan-in rate of every student season ticket holder,” he said. “So the more you’ve actually shown at games over the course of your Indiana experience the better your chance in the lottery.”
The same thing applies to alumni season ticket holders.
If you can’t get tickets through these means, either IU or Notre Dame fan, you’ll have to test the secondary market. That’s where you will have to expect to shell out a lot of dough. Minimum ticket prices for nosebleed seats on Monday was right around $1,000. Since then, prices have dropped a bit since they hit the market on Monday with the lowest available ticket prices for one ticket at around $750.
These prices are still far and away more expensive than other College Football Playoff games. Tennessee at Ohio State is around $300. SMU at Penn State is $90. Clemson at Texas is also around $300.
Gray believes the proximity between the IU and Notre Dame is a big reason tickets for the game are such a hot commodity.
“I think that’s a driving factor,” he said. “I think another driving factor is the novelty of Indiana making it. You’ve got a lot of alums and people interested in those programs within driving distance of the stadium, so I really think those three factors are really driving up the price.”
