National Championship ticket data suggest a heavy pro-Georgia crowd will be on-hand

The price is ballooning because of location, location, location.

This may not surprise you, but tickets to the national championship game featuring Georgia, being played in Atlanta, are pretty damn expensive on the secondary market. Athens is just a quick 70 miles from Georgia’s capital, and not to mention the state is already filled with Dawg fans. It looks like they are the ones buying most of the tickets, too:

Here’s more from TicketIQ:

On TicketIQ.com, we’re seeing four times the visits from GA vs. AL. Our partners at Priceline.com are seeing similar numbers, with an 80% jump in ATL hotel searches in the state of GA vs. only a 20% jump from the state of AL. The get-in prices on either side also make clear the differing levels of demand.

· Bama side from $1,690.

· UGA side from $2,225.

It’s not that Alabama fans won’t travel to this game — Tuscaloosa is only a three-hour drive from Atlanta, and the Crimson Tide nearly played three games in ATL this season, as well. Even still, looks like crowd will be made up of a whole bunch of Dawg fans on Monday night.

For those that are looking for a last-minute ticket, you’ll have to shell out over $1,400 to sit in the nosebleeds, per StubHub.

The average ticket prices for this game were around $2,300, which is a historic high. Here’s ESPN’s Darren Rovell with more of a breakdown on the prices:

The average ticket sold on the most frequented resale sites is up over $2,300 ($2,319 on StubHub, $2,413 on Vivid Seats).

StubHub’s average sold ticket for this year’s game is 41 percent higher than the highest average of the previous six title games.

That previous high was for the 2013 game between Alabama and Notre Dame, which had an average sale of $1,640.

And while the matchup is between two great teams, travel has quite a bit to do with why ticket prices are so steep.

TicketIQ

Will UGA will benefit from the home-state advantage? Since the BCS era began, teams playing in title games in their home state have gone .500.

2000: Florida State lost to Oklahoma at Miami’s Pro Player Stadium, 13-2.

2003: LSU beat Oklahoma at New Orleans’ Superdome, 21-14.

2005: USC lost to Texas at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, 41-38.

2007: LSU beat Ohio State at the Superdome, 38-24.

2008: Florida beat Oklahoma at Miami’s Dolphin Stadium, 24-14. (That’s the same as the Pro Player Stadium mentioned above. The same Miami stadium has changed its name 10 times in the last 29 years, an incredible run engineered only to confuse you.)

2011: LSU lost to Alabama at the Superdome, 21-0.

Those who are able to attend will have wallets considerably lighter than they are today. You can put a high price on the experience, but this is Georgia’s first 50-50 shot at a national title in almost four decades. And it’s in the city where thousands of UGA fans call home, it’s something of a pilgrimage more so than it is a football game. I’d say it’s well worth it.