CFP First-Round Tickets See Steep Drop in Second Year

As the College Football Playoff kicks off Friday night, ticket prices for the four on-campus games are a bargain compared with last year’s debut first-round home games.

Every game is sold out, and Miami–Texas A&M at Kyle Field on Saturday at noon ET is this weekend’s most expensive on the secondary market, with the cheapest get-in price hovering around $237.

Here’s a look at resale prices for all four matchups:

• Miami at Texas A&M: $237
• Tulane at Ole Miss: $190
• Alabama at Oklahoma: $168
• James Madison at Oregon: $63

The cost to attend this year’s first-round games is much lower than in the days leading up to 2024’s CFP. Last December, the cheapest resale tickets for Indiana–Notre Dame were more than $900, while Clemson-Texas and Tennessee–Ohio State each topped $300. This weekend’s games feature two Group of 6 visiting opponents in Tulane and JMU, and they don’t have the benefit of the massive fan bases that Notre Dame, Texas, and Ohio State carried last year.

Ticket prices for last season’s CFP quarterfinal matchups, played at traditional New Year’s Six bowl sites, were substantially lower than the first round. The get-in price for the Rose Bowl was nearly $200, but the cheapest seats for the other three games all cost less than $40.

Home Field Advantage

Last year, the home teams swept the four first-round CFP games, as the lively on-campus playoff environments were widely praised by fans and college football pundits, compared to neutral bowl sites where the four-team CFP exclusively played games (and the remainder of the 12-team CFP games will be). Should the CFP expand to 16 teams, four more first-round games would be added, which would likely also be played at teams’ home stadiums.

ABC/ESPN and TNT Sports are splitting the four first-round game broadcasts, with the Disney platforms getting the two more desirable matchups and the Warner Bros. Discovery channels having to face competition from Saturday NFL games on Fox.

ABC and ESPN will simulcast Alabama-Oklahoma on Friday at 8 p.m. (all times ET), and Miami–Texas A&M on Saturday at noon. TNT Sports gets Tulane–Ole Miss on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and JMU-Oregon at 7:30 p.m. Fox will show Eagles-Commanders on Saturday at 5 p.m. and Packers-Bears at 8:20 p.m.

Coaching Carousel Spins

Five of the eight teams playing this weekend are dealing with various impacts of the college football coaching carousel. 

Tulane’s Jon Sumrall and JMU’s Bob Chesney have accepted head coaching positions at Florida and UCLA, respectively. Ole Miss will play its first game under newly promoted Pete Golding, who took over the reins from Lane Kiffin. Oregon’s offensive and defensive coordinators have both accepted head coaching jobs at Kentucky and Cal, respectively. Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer continues to deal with speculation that Michigan is trying to hire him.