Playoff ticket reservation prices show Alabama fans still expect to get in

While the AP polls have been turned upside down after last weekends series of upsets, the ticket market has largely shrugged off last weekend’s results.  Perhaps, the non-reaction is a nod to the the new four-team playoff, which makes a single loss a lot less punitive than during the BCS era. Based on data from Teamtix, Alabama still has the most expensive face price reservation of any team in the country, at $60.  Teamtix works with the college football playoff to sell faceprice reservation for both the semi-final games and the championship, and provide the equivilant of an option market for anyone looking to speculate on who will make it playoff. At $60, Alabama is still $5 more expensive than Auburn and Florida State and $35 more than both Mississippi and Mississippi State.

When someone purchases a face price reservation, they’re reserving the right to buy a faceprice ticket directly from the primary market.  If the team someone buys an option for gets into the semi-final game the value of our option will go up, in theory to a price in line with what’s available on the secondary market.   If the reservation holder decides to exercise your face price reservation, they’d have to buy a ticket at face value, which is either $150 or $200, depending on which semi-final game the team you purchased an option for gets sent to.  Right now, the average price for College Football Playoff tickets to the two semi-final games is $529, with the Rose Bowl game being slightly less expensive than the Sugar Bowl game according to data from TiqIQ.

That means that even for the most expensive face price reservation, the price you’d be paying after it’s all said and done is substantially below what’s currently available on the secondary market.  For the Sugar Bowl game, you’d be paying about half price. For the Rose Bowl, your discount would be even higher.

While it’s safe to assume that the Auburn market will move up as the week goes on, the low prices for Ole Miss and Mississippi State is harder to understand.  It may simply have to do with the fact that fans for the two Mississippi teams have not been in this situation before and don’t know that face price reservations even exist while Auburn and Alabama fans are pretty familiar with how the system works.

Below is the current list of faceprice reservations according to Teamtix.