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Ticket demand for the College Football Playoff’s first quarterfinal matchups is substantially lower than it was for the debut of first-round games.
Traditional New Year’s Six bowl games will host the next round of action kicking off Tuesday night in Arizona, before a tripleheader of games across the country on Wednesday (all times ET):
- Fiesta Bowl, 7:30 p.m.: (6) Penn State–(3) Boise State
- Peach Bowl, 1 p.m.: (5) Texas–(4) Arizona State
- Rose Bowl, 5 p.m.: (8) Ohio State–(1) Oregon
- Sugar Bowl, 8:45 p.m.: (7) Notre Dame–(2) Georgia
As of Monday afternoon, the get-in price for the Rose Bowl on major secondary ticketing platforms was nearly $200, but the cheapest seats for the other three games all cost less than $40. In the first round, some get-in prices were nearing $1,000 in the days leading up to the game.
ESPN platforms will exclusively broadcast the rest of the CFP, following an impressive 10.6 million average game audience from the first round—across ESPN and TNT Sports platforms. Last season, the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl hosted CFP semifinal games that averaged 23.2 million viewers on ESPN platforms.
New Look, Same Story?
While the quarterfinals are set to look and feel much different than on-campus first-round games, the CFP’s unique format could lead to some similarly lopsided results on the field.
Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, and Arizona State are coming off first-round byes, thanks to their respective conference championships that resulted in the top four Playoff seeds.
But after all four home favorites blew out their underdog visitors in the first round, the expanded CFP’s new automatic qualifying structure has led to two lower seeds being double-digit favorites in the quarterfinals.
Oddsmakers expect Texas and Penn State, which were ranked Nos. 3 and 4 in the final CFP rankings of the regular season, to win big over Arizona State and Boise State, respectively. Boise State finished No. 9 and Arizona State No. 11 in the final CFP rankings, but were the third- and fourth-highest-ranked conference champions.
Meanwhile, No. 1 Oregon is actually a slight underdog to No. 8 Ohio State. Georgia, which will be without injured starting quarterback Carson Beck, is favored slightly over Notre Dame.
