The creation of the Big 12 and the 12-team version of the SEC brought this new-fangled idea of a conference championship game to the the world of college football in the 1990s.
Now everyone from the MAC to the American Athletic Conference and everyone but the Big 12 seemingly has a conference title game. Television networks line up every year to fill that void of programming with one final weekend full of college football before the bowls begin.
Yet, for the fans who are supposed to take these games seriously, getting their butts in the seats has been a mixed bag to say the least.
Often the smaller conference title games are played before half-empty stadiums at best, while late week ticket giveaways have to be used to fill in seats at some of the bigger conference title games.
The 2016 season brings us an interesting mixed bag of results when it comes to conference title games. On one hand, there’s the MAC championship game which has one of the two remaining undefeated teams playing in it (Western Michigan). Normally that game is played before a pretty empty Ford Field in Detroit.
However, reports indicate that some 46,000 tickets have been sold for the title game. That is a huge improvement from even the best mark in the past. As the Detroit Free Press points out:
Central Michigan’s involvement has brought out the three highest crowds for a MAC title game at Ford Field. The highest attendance for a MAC title game is 25,483, when Central Michigan beat Ohio, 31-10, in 2006. CMU beat Miami (Ohio), 35-10, in front of 25,013 in 2007 and beat Ohio, 20-10, in front of 23,714 in 2009.
Given the fact that Western Michigan is likely to go to a New Year’s Six bowl game and is having perhaps the best season of any team in MAC history, it is easy to see why a caravan from Kalamazoo to Detroit would happen.
The AAC title game, featuring Navy, who is in a heated battle with the Broncos for the “Group of 5” spot in the New Year’s Six bowl games is having major trouble. It is even being hosted by Navy, who say that just 22,000 tickets have been secured for its conference title matchup with Temple on Saturday.
Sure, Army-Navy is next weekend and that game will always be well-attended, but this is a huge game for the program today and in to the future. If they can’t even get the normal 33,000 or so to show up for this game, what does it say for the importance of the AAC around Navy athletics fans?
No game may have more implications on the outcome of the 2016 national college football landscape than the Pac-12 title game between Washington and Colorado. Both weren’t exactly favorites to get to Santa Clara, but they are there with Washington possibly heading to the College Football Playoff with a win and Colorado seeking to re-insert themselves as a power on the national scene.
Instead of those two fan bases being jacked up for a trip to the title game, tickets are literally being given away to anyone flying Alaska Airlines from Seattle to San Jose. No, not as part of buying a flight package, but simply because there is a huge need to get butts in the seats at Levi’s Stadium.
Not only was there a ticket, there were a pair of tickets on each and every seat on one plane out from Seattle to San Jose.
This plane is packed with Husky fans. Aboard flight #326 to @FlySJC. Everyone receives a special surprise. #WiththeDawgs #PurpleReign pic.twitter.com/6o6mFh5ghC
— Alaska Airlines (@AlaskaAir) December 1, 2016
Of course, problems with the Pac-12 title game abound and are things the conference likely needs to correct in order to get this game off the ground. First off, the stadium in Santa Clara is next to impossible to get to, and even if you want to, braving the insane traffic of the Bay Area isn’t really worth it.
Secondly, playing this game at 6 p.m. local time on a Friday night isn’t exactly an incentive to getting fans to travel for the game. Yes, television ratings matter, but so does the atmosphere in front of the players playing this game.
Who wants to see a major conference title game with empty seats being noticeable? It doesn’t exactly feel big time that way, nor should it given the amateur treatment the Pac-12 has given this game from the very beginning.
Tickets are still going for $35 on the day of the game and that is the official price. Look on the secondary market and you’ll find tickets on StubHub for a whopping $16 for end zone seats in the second level of the seating bowl.
The crowd at 6pm PT pic.twitter.com/G9Pu7qX1mP
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) December 6, 2014
Stick this thing in Los Angeles, especially once the new stadium is in place, put the game either in the middle of Saturday or late night on Friday and let it be done. Fans will flock to the City of Angels, trust me.
After all, the home-field advantage idea didn’t work for the Pac-12 before and Santa Clara hasn’t been a hit for anyone involved except for the conference coffers thanks to TV revenue.
But, that isn’t the only Power 5 conference with title games issues either. Even the Big Ten championship game, featuring Penn State and its huge fanbase for the first time, is struggling to be a “big time” event on the ticket front.
Sure, Penn State and Wisconsin have sold out their allotment of tickets, but consider the difference between this year and last, which featured Iowa and Michigan State. According to reports, the prices are nearly $400 different on the secondary market, and not in the good way.
Last season, the average list price of a ticket for Michigan State-Iowa in the Big Ten championship game spiked to a high of $551.97, according to TickPick, a secondary ticket marketplace. This year, about 3,800 tickets to the title game between Penn State and Wisconsin were selling at a record low of $102, as of Thursday.
The lowest face value ticket for the game available through Ticketmaster is $50. As of Friday morning, there were 477 tickets available on TickPick, while on StubHub there were more than 100 listings for tickets costing $20 or less.
Clearly college football has sold itself to the highest TV bidder, but it is also running the razor’s edge with those who actually show up to root their teams on in person. Maybe these numbers show that the conference’s need to re-think some of their strategy when it comes to title games?
The answers surely aren’t easy to come by, but the problems are obvious in 2016.
