- Nearly a third of football fans in a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll say attending a game is not affordable.
- Ticket prices to college football games vary depending on the home team's opponent, time of year and game time.
- The survey found younger people see going to a game as more affordable than older people.
Thinking about taking your family to a college football game in Utah this year? Be prepared to pay. How much depends largely on the opponent.
The University of Utah opens the season Sept. 3. at home against the Idaho Vandals, a Football Championship Subdivision or FCS school in the Big Sky Conference. A single-game ticket starts at $38 on SeatGeek.
But when BYU plays Utah in Salt Lake City in November, the cheapest seat starts at $331.
And speaking of BYU, you could see the Cougars take on the Utah Tech Trailblazers, also a Big Sky team, in the first game of the season, for as low as $88 per ticket, according to SeatGeek.
When Notre Dame comes to Provo for a marquee matchup with BYU in October, prices start around $600.
Utah State, one of the three Football Bowl Subdivision or FBS schools in the state along with BYU and Utah, has the lowest ticket prices even as it moves to the newly reconfigured Pac-12 conference.
Utah and BYU play in the Big 12, one of the Power Four conferences.
Like most college and pro sports teams, the three schools effectively use what is known as variable pricing: Ticket prices are set in advance at different levels for different games based on expected demand, the opponent, day of week and time of year.
Affordable or unaffordable?
A new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll shows nearly one-third of Utah voters who consider themselves football fans don’t find it affordable to take their family to a game. Nearly another third find game costs, including tickets, parking and food, slightly affordable.
About one-fifth of fans in the survey find a college football game moderately affordable, while 1 in 10 says it’s very affordable.
The poll asked 789 Utah registered voters how interested they are in college football. It found 56% considered themselves avid or casual fans. Those fans were then asked how affordable or unaffordable it is for them or their family to attend a college football game in person.
Post-pandemic demand, NIL, revenue sharing, an expanded College Football Playoff and general inflation have driven up college football ticket prices the past several years. Schools pass down those costs to fans.
Here’s what a family of four — two adults, two kids — could approximately expect to pay for a typical non-marquee home game based on the cheapest tickets, parking and reasonable concessions at Utah’s three FBS schools:
BYU — $425
Utah — $340
Utah State — $185
For Utah and BYU, the amounts are based on the lowest-cost games of the year, the two against the FCS opponents. Ticket prices for home games against Big 12 teams are higher, as are those against higher-profile non-conference schools. And, of course, better seats always cost more.
A family of four can attend a Utah State game for roughly half the cost of a Utah game and one-third the cost of a BYU game against a quality opponent.
By the numbers
The new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll found that, generally speaking, younger people see college football games as more affordable than older people.
About 4 in 10 people over age 45 say tickets are not at all affordable, the highest percentage among the age groups. Only 10% of those aged 45-64 say they are very affordable, as do 5% of those 65 and older.
Nearly 20% of football fans aged 18-34 say prices are very affordable, the highest percentage of any age group.
That might reflect, in part, that older people recall a time when tickets to college football games or any sporting event were much less expensive than they are today.
As for income levels, the survey found, naturally, that people with higher earnings were more likely to find tickets affordable. Half of those who make less than $50,000 a year say the cost of going to a game is not at all affordable.