Red River Rivalry ticket prices: A detailed look (Infographic)

The other day while looking at ticket prices for the Red River Rivalry on Stub Hub I noticed a trend. Tickets on the Texas Longhorns’ side of the Cotton Bowl are much cheaper than tickets on the Oklahoma Sooners’ side.

Well the fine folks over at SeatGeek, a ticket search engine, sent me some interesting observations about the ticket prices and trends over the last few seasons. They say that tickets on the Texas side are 40% cheaper than tickets on the Oklahoma side by average in the 2013 match up. They also say this is the largest gap they’ve seen since 2010. That 2010 season followed their loss to Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game and the Longhorns went 5-7 overall that year.

That game the Longhorns came in with a 3-1 record, not far off from the their 3-2 record this year. It seems that Longhorns fans faith has been shaken given the rumors surrounding head coach Mack Brown’s status and shaky performances earlier in the year. The Longhorns have also been blown out in this game in the last two years, a 55-17 loss in 2011 and a 63-21 loss in 2012.

So Longhorns fans are unloading tickets for cheap.

Here are some trends and statistics the people at SeatGeek found.

• The average ticket price on the Oklahoma side is $331, and on the Texas side is $209, a $122 difference. This gap is the largest SeatGeek has seen in four years.
• In the three years prior, the biggest margin between ticket prices for the different sides was $53
• The ticket price average on the Texas side has fallen 53% since the start of the season. Tickets went for an average of $354 before the BYU loss and dropped to $168 yesterday.
• The cumulative average ticket price of $209 for the Texas side is the lowest in the last four years.
• The cumulative average ticket price of $209 is a 24% drop off from last year’s average of $275.
• Texas side tickets have sold for as little as $80 and the current lowest is $99.
• The cheapest ticket price on the Oklahoma side is $133, you can find cheaper tickets in 15 different sections on the Texas side, including four sections in the lower level.

This trend isn’t specific to just the Red River Rivalry either. Demand for tickets at Texas home games in Austin has dropped 38% since the BYU loss, according to SeatGeek. Tickets were selling for an average of $144 the day of the BYU game and dropped all the way to $8 on the day of the Kansas State game.

SeatGeek has pointed out that the market has balanced out since Texas won against Kansas State and Iowa State and has risen back up to $90, but still prices are no where close to the mark before the BYU loss.

On the national stage however, Longhorns tickets are still a hot item. Before the the first game of the season SeatGeek says that Texas had the 10th highest average resale ticket price in the whole country at $125. Since then the average ticket price has slipped to $95, but it is still the 17th highest in the nation.

Here is a gif that shows you the average ticket price per section over three years. Texas is on the right, Oklahoma is on the left.

Here are some infographics breaking down ticket prices year by year since 2010.