Some Salt with Your Tickets? Scalpers May Eat BCS National Championship Tix

Will a lack of demand force scalpers to eat tickets to tonight’s Florida State-Auburn game?

ESPN reports that some tickets in the secondary market for tonight’s BCS National Championship are priced below face value. The median price paid for the Florida-State-Auburn contest at StubHub was $799, down 45% from last year’s big game and 47% from 2012. The markdown marks the first time since 2011 that the average price for a ticket has fallen below $1,000.

The Rose Bowl’s enormous capacity (93,000) and the distance between Auburn and Tallahassee, on the one hand, and Pasadena, on the other, are among the reasons cited for the supply of relatively cheap tickets. The combatants again hailing from one geographic region may also explain public disinterest.

A team outside of the Southeast Conference hasn’t won the national championship in eight years. Number-one ranked Florida State, as a 9-point favorite over number-two Auburn, represents the best chance to wrest the national title from the SEC’s stranglehold over it.