Auburn-Oregon breaks the bank on BCS ticket demand

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Thu Jan 06 06:58am EST

Auburn-Oregon breaks the bank on BCS ticket demand

How hot a ticket is Monday's BCS Championship showdown between Auburn and Oregon? As of Wednesday evening, hot enough not only to frustrate the efforts of the kind of people who aren't used to making one to see a football game, but also to effectively break the big online ticket brokers: Both StubHub and TicketCity have actually stopped sales for the game due to a run on tickets that even the Super Bowl can't command.

"As a result of the high demand and scarcity of BCS National Championship Game tickets, we have been unable to fulfill some customers' orders," a StubHub spokesman said in a statement released Wednesday night. "Unfortunately, one of our larger sellers for this event could not secure enough tickets to fulfill all of their confirmed sales, which has caused a trickle-down effect." Needless to say, if you bought your ticket months ago, that effect could bring you quite a nice return on that investment this week.

Prior to shutting down sales, BCS Championship tickets on StubHub were starting at more than $3,880 on Wednesday afternoon, and climbing as high as $15,995 for a seat on the 50-yard line. The average ticket for the game had gone for slightly more than $1,100, making it the top-selling event in the history of the site. "Right now, it's unprecedented," Dan Rubendall, CEO of online ticket broker Zigabid.com, told the Portland Oregonian. "It's absolutely the craziest scene we've ever seen. I mean, this is bigger than any Super Bowl we've seen in 20 years."

You can still get a ticket online, but you'd better be prepared to pay: They're going for thousands on Craigslist, and the online brokers still offering them are asking $4,675 apiece. For standing room only. If you can afford that, you might as well spring for a helicopter ride to the gate and a bodyguard to make sure you actually get in with them, too.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.