All CFB home openers are done. Let's review.

Hey everyone - thanks for opening up this week’s NILnomics and spending some time with me. This will be a fun and timely issue.

Now that Miami (OH) and Central Michigan have played their first home games, we can look back at the home opener of every FBS team. I’m going to slice the data in more ways than make sense, but I’ll dig up enough information to make it worth our while. We’re going to look at ticket prices, TV networks, and opponents.

Pour a drink 🍻 . Get comfortable 🪑 . Let’s get into it 🎉 .

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Ticket Prices - A True Indicator - Of Something

I’m always looking for a way to do some shoe leather research in the newsletter. I don’t want anyone thinking all I do is scrape athletic department websites, financial reports, or contracts. And so I’ve been spending alot of time at the start of this season going online and looking up ticket prices…. to every home game.

It’s not exactly the purest adaptation of the scientific method. Which, as an academic, pains me. But the methodology was simple:

1. Log onto Stubhub.com the day before the game

2. Look for single ticket

3. Record lowest price

I can imagine the quant on my dissertation committee ripping this approach to shreds, but for us laymen, I think this approach is sound. The point isn’t the precision, robustness, or replicability - I think we all get this is a reasonable approach to understanding college football ticket prices.

A few caveats. When I say first home game - I mean home in the most precise fashion. So if you were the ‘home’ team in Ireland or got to play at Mercedes Benz Stadium - that doesn’t count. I wanted an approximation of the cost for a local fan to slip into the arena as cheaply as possible at the last possible minute.

I think this’ll be a fun annual analysis to look at. So without further ado, what’s the cost to get into each team’s home opener?

Quick Takeaways:

• I went into this having no idea what to expect. Tickets were free to us at Bowling Green. And I assumed we’d have some schools where the cost would be astronomical then a typical normal distribution. But I have to say - these prices seem reasonable?

• The range is $299 - $4. That’s not so big! Also shout out to BC at $5. I can speak to this as a Massachusetts resident - absolutely no one wants to go to these games. As someone with three kids and absolutely broke from childcare bills, I couldn’t even convince my wife to bring the kids to this game when I was researching the price despite how affordable an entertainment option it is!

• Only 11 schools had a get-in price over $100! I would have guessed half the SEC/B1G/ACC/Big12 would have had that. Incredible.

• Is college football the most affordable ‘popular’ sport in the country? This will need some further analysis, but I’m blown away by how cheap these tickets are.

• That OSU/Texas game at $257 is much lower than I expected. The way the match was hyped, I’d have expected much higher.

• I’ve never seen the SEC ranked so low in any of the conference aggregated analysis like this I’ve done. I guess it just means more, except in driving up cost. Which, to be fair, is what you want?

Analyst’s Desk

I described the methodology before the chart. I would add that Stubhub now includes taxes and all fees in the listing price, which makes an analysis like this much easier/quicker to do. The data is also available if you want to look.

Quick Takeaways:

• ESPN dominates. Between ESPN+, ESPNU, ESPN, and ESPN2, there’s just a ton of college football on the Worldwide Leader. Volume counts for alot in this space.

• The method may have screwed some broadcast here (see notes below) - most B1G games are on NBC/Peacock/BTN at the same time so I think those games are being spread thin.

• I had to double check that CW was truly broadcasting college football. I remember watching Buffy on the CW when I was younger. Haven’t watched it since then. Life comes at you fast.

• I actually tried to list the price for each of these platforms, but gave up. There are so many bundles that change the price and some that are only available on YoutubeTV or some other streamer, it’s overwhelming. I’m sure someone is studying this, but it’s too much to try to dip your toes into. The point is - it would be way too expensive to watch every college football game each week.

Analyst’s Desk

This gets messy pretty fast because some games are broadcast on two platforms. I just recorded the first one that was listed on ESPN.com. I recognize that approach may be short changing some of the broadcasters. Sorry!

Quick Takeaways:

• Can anyone blame an AD who wants to give their home crowds something to cheer for the first game?

• Let’s tip our hates to the 7 G6 schools (Oregon State, Tulane, Southern Miss, Rice, Ohio, Hawaii, & Missouri State) that booked FBS opponents (Cal, Northwestern, Mississippi State, Houston, West Virginia, Stanford, & SMU). They may not be the most elite FBS opponents, but it’s still impressive they chose to open the season at home against higher tier opponents like that.

• Several cupcakes show up 2x as traveling to be served up to an FBS for a home opener. I suppose those game guarantees are what keeps the lights on. A few to note are Idaho State, Western Illinois, UT Martin, Saint Francis, Merrimack, LIU, Charlestone Southern, and Abilene Christian.

Analyst’s Desk

The categories are straightforward. As these are all FBS schools (G6 & P4) anyone who faced an FCS school for their home opener gets labelled a cupcake. Those P4 schools that booked a G6 team for their home opener I labelled ‘weak’ while anyone who booked someone at their level (G6-G6, P4-P4) I counted as ‘respectable.’ The G6 teams opening up their home schedule against a P4 team I called ‘bold.’ Again, the data is out there to see for yourself.

🔉 What I’m Listening To 🔉 

I’m always on the lookout for anyone breaking down college sports and especially the business side of the industry. Here’s this week’s best listens:

• NIL Clubhouse - the latest episode centered around the SCORE Act, the Pavia eligibility case, and the newest Ben & Jerry’s franchise owner in North Carolina.

• SportsWise (9/6 and 9/16) - one of the best podcasts out there on the legal side of college sports. 9/6 had a great interview with Title IX expert Janet Judge and 9/16 had former NLRB General Council Jennifer Abruzzo on. These are people deep in the weeds on important issues and great conversations to listen to.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for reading this week’s issue.

I’m hoping you found the topic as interesting as I have. Look out next week for (finally) my review of athletic fees across FBS. It’ll be an interesting one 👀 

Thanks again for your time. Now finish your beverage 😀 

Until next time,

Greg Chick, PhD

Data Analyst

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