BOULDER — The Rocky Mountain Showdown isn’t just the hottest football ticket on the Front Range this weekend. It’s one of the hottest college football tickets in the country.
The popular ticketing site VividSeats.com says based on its market database, CU-CSU was the fourth-most expensive college football seat in the nation as of Tuesday, with an average get-in price of $201.
VividSeats.com told The Post that makes it the most expensive ticket to a Rocky Mountain Showdown via their site since it started tracking such numbers in 2014. It’s also the No. 4 ticket nationally behind South Carolina at Georgia ($285), Pitt at West Virginia ($260), and East Carolina at Appalachian State ($254).
The site’s previous average high for a Showdown ticket was $78 for the 2014 matchup at Empower Field, which CSU won, 31-17. The third-highest average CU-CSU ticket checked in at $74 in 2015; and was valued at $57 on average in both 2017 and 2018.
Of course, some context must be added: This year’s game will be played at Folsom Field, with a capacity of 50,183, rather than the much more spacious Empower Field (76,125 capacity).
VividSeats reported that prices for the Showdown shot up 20% overnight following the Buffs’ 36-14 demolition of rival Nebraska last Saturday.
And if you’re still not convinced that what Buffs faithful dub “The Prime Effect” is real, hold on tight. The site TicketIQ.com reported this week that, per its internal data, 18th-ranked CU now boasts the most expensive ticket in all of college football, with a secondary market average list price of $517.
That’s higher than some pretty good company, as Ohio State ($512 average), Tennessee ($492 average), Notre Dame ($481 average) and Alabama ($470 average) round out TicketIQ.com’s top 5.
The site reports that Buffs football tickets saw the second-largest single-season jump in price, at a rise of 327% over last year’s average price. That’s more than double the No. 3 increase, held by Tennessee (160% off ’22 prices) and trails only Tulane (548%) nationally.
As for Coach Prime himself, Deion Sanders said during his weekly news conference on Tuesday that he’s too locked in on the matchup with CSU to enjoy the view from a Mile High.
“Santa don’t have time, he’s got to deliver the gifts,” Sanders cracked. “He don’t have time to enjoy his cookies … I’ve got to keep it going.”
