Longhorns and Aggies fans sending huge message about Saturday’s rivalry game by paying crazy ticket prices
Resale tickets going for $650 to sit up high, $2,500 to sit behind the Longhorns’ bench
Fans who waited, hoped and prayed that Texas-Texas A&M ticket prices would go down this week are out of luck.
Everywhere you look, the secondary ticket market is sending a strong message — Saturday’s rivalry renewal is expected to be epic.
It’s the first time Texas and Texas A&M have met on the football field since 2011, and the winner advances to the SEC championship game. Yes, it’s big. ESPN’s “College GameDay” will be there. A spot in the College Football Playoffs is up for grabs, too.
Ticket prices start at $642 on Ticketmaster, and that’s just to sit in the upper deck of the end zone. Over on Stubhub, there were a pair of seats listed at $582, but most tickets in the same area were $635 and up.
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Texas fans want to sit behind the Longhorns bench will pay through the nose. Tickets in section 125 range from $2,600 to just under $3,000.
It’s quite a difference if you want to sit closer to the goal lines. On Stubhub, the prices come down to about $1,700. Most tickets near the goal line on Ticketmaster are in the $2,000 range.
According to SEC rules, each visiting team is guaranteed 5,000 tickets to be sold through their ticket office. Texas offered those tickets to preferred donors and longtime season ticket holders this summer. They were gone practically within seconds.
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A&M students created a firestorm when they did their normal ticket distribution last week, prompting thousands of students to camp out in the early hours. Some tried to manipulate the system of buying guest tickets and trying to flip them for huge profits.
It was so bad, the Aggies plan on looking at the entire student ticket distribution system for possible changes.
“This is my responsibility to make sure we don’t let that happen again and we will not,” Texas A&M President Mark A. Welsh said afterward. “There was enough bad behavior to go around this last week and there were some very un-Aggie things happening out there."
“There were people not respecting others,” Welsh said. “There were people who were bending the rules … taking advantage of the situation. None of that is acceptable here, and that part was surprising and disappointing, quite frankly.”
Those who get into Kyle Field on Saturday should feel lucky. They’ll be witnessing history, for sure. How much fans willing to pay at this point is subjective.
