Notre Dame-UGA ticket prices soar ahead of Sat.

ByMark Schlabach ESPN logo
Tuesday, September 17, 2019

ATHENS, Ga. -- It's getting expensive to be a Georgiafootball fan.

Tickets for Saturday night's game between No. 3 Georgia and No. 7 Notre Dameat Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia, are the most expensive this season and among the five toughest tickets to acquire in college football over the last five years, according to independent broker Vivid Seats.

The average ticket price sold on Vivid through Sunday was $611. For comparison, the average price of tickets sold for Saturday's game between No. 11 Michigan and No. 13 Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin, is $184.

During the last five seasons, four of the five most expensive tickets for college football games, excluding bowls and the College Football Playoff, involved the Bulldogs, according to Vivid.

Saturday's game between the Bulldogs and Fighting Irish (8 p.m. ET, CBS) is one of the most highly anticipated nonconference matchups in Georgia history.

In fact, it's the first non-SEC matchup between top-10 teams at Sanford since 1966, when the No. 7 Bulldogs beat No. 5 Georgia Tech, 23-14. That was legendary coach Bobby Dodd's final season as the Yellow Jackets' coach and two years after Georgia Tech left the SEC.

Saturday's game is a rematch from 2017, when thousands of Georgia fans flocked to South Bend, Indiana, to watch the Bulldogs knock off the Fighting Irish, 20-19, at Notre Dame Stadium in Georgia coach Kirby Smart's second season.

"It's exciting for the fans," Smart said Monday. "The fans enjoy these games. They want you to play high-caliber opponents. They want to see these kind of games and this kind of atmosphere."

Georgia officials said Monday that they're preparing for as many as 90,000 fans without tickets to be in Athens this weekend.

The Bulldogs are adding 500 seats in aluminum bleachers below the scoreboard in the west end zone for Notre Dame fans, bringing Sanford's capacity to a record 93,246. The extra seating was needed because the schools agreed to allot 8,000 tickets for visiting fans to the home-and-home series; Georgia's typical visiting team allotment is 7,500.

"I know our guys will be excited to play," Smart said. "I know it will be an awesome atmosphere. Our fans never fail when it comes to support and being there. It'll be a record crowd with the additional seats. But after that, it's going to come down to football, and that's what it always boils down to -- who can block and tackle."

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