'More expensive than Taylor Swift?!' Inside the CFP National Championship ticket prices soaring to new heights

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- Since the confetti began to rain on the Miami Hurricanes following their Fiesta Bowl semifinal win over Ole Miss, Joshua Herran hasn't slept much, evidenced by an apologetic 1 a.m. text asking if it was too late to talk. He's been fielding phone calls from people he's never met or hasn't spoken to in years, even estranged family members have found his number. He's had people in his condo building stop him on the way into his apartment, too. Why? Because the 'Canes are in the College Football Playoff National Championship, and as a ticket broker, he has access to the hottest event in town. 

"If you were to call me right now for a ticket, an upper level is going for about $2,750 and a lower level right now is going for $3,750," Herran said Thursday. "Club levels are going for about $4,000 each, and the 72 Club, which is the all inclusive, all you can eat, drink, you know, best seat in the house on the 50-yard line, those are going for about $15,000 each right now"

Miami is a big-event city. No metro area has hosted more Super Bowls. In May, Hard Rock Stadium's parking lot doubles as an F1 race track for the Miami Grand Prix. The main reason the city hasn't hosted an NBA All Star game since 1990 is because the Miami International Boat Show is on the same weekend. 

This title game stands out as the most unique atmosphere in the history of standalone national title games, which began with the BCS in 1998. On one side there is Miami, playing in its home stadium after 25 years of futility grasping at glory days of a bygone era. Then there is Indiana, which has, in the broad sense of college football history, come out of nowhere to become a football behemoth. The Hoosiers claim to be the largest living alumni base in the country at over 800,000, many of which are spread out across the country -- including Florida. Title games can often have a corporate atmosphere, but this year's game promises to have a truly charged atmosphere of two fanbases genuinely happy to be here. 

With those factors in mind, it's no surprise that this is the most expensive national championship game on record, and the second-most expensive event ever held at Hard Rock Stadium. 

Tickets for the title game, according to Herran, have surpassed even Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, which he says had tickets in the 72 club come close to $10,000 apiece. 

"It's more expensive than Taylor Swift? We have arrived. That's awesome. I will just say that speaks to the excitement of the game," CFP executive director Rich Clark said. 

CFP National Championship prices throughout the years

Courtesy: Ticket technology company Victory Live, which analyzes sales on the secondary market. The figures below represent Average Ticket Price (ATP) -- defined as the average sold ticket price -- measured one week out from each game. They do not include ticket fees.

Prices fluctuate throughout game week. Shortly after Indiana officially secured its spot in the game, the cheapest price to get in the game on the 300 level of Hard Rock Stadium was $3,644 including fees, according to a StubHub search conducted by CBS Sports. Herran says he doesn't tack the fees on that the sites do, and therefore can charge a bit less. 

Each school gets an allotment of 20,000 tickets. The other 25,000 tickets at Hard Rock stadium are divvied up between ESPN, corporate sponsors, the CFP itself and local committees that organize the game. Indiana senior associate athletic director Jeremy Gray told CBS Sports that the school got 31,000 official requests. Included in that allotment are tickets for players' families, the school's band and a small number is held back for school VIPs like billionaire Mark Cuban or MLB All-Star Kyle Schwarber. The face value of the tickets range from $575-$1,450 across five levels. 

Even the most visible alums of both schools have noticed the demand on the marked. 

Former Miami wide receiver Michael Irvin made it known early in game week that he can't hook people up. 

And Billionaire Mark Cuban has taken notice that the tickets are going for a pretty penny. 

Not only do those prices fluctuate, but as they do, so does demand. Herran says he has hundreds of people he knows who would pay him $2,000 for a ticket, but he's waiting for game time to get closer and a level of desperation to set in, especially with Indiana fans who are flying in without a ticket yet. He can sit on his inventory for a little while longer.

"Tomorrow is Friday. It's a payday. And guess what? Everybody's been talking about this game since [Miami] won last Thursday, and then all of a sudden you're going to have Indiana people that are going to start getting in the airplanes, are going to start coming down. Maybe they come Friday or Saturday or Sunday. And once they get on that plane and they check in, there's no going back. They're gonna go to the game."

As IU hopes to have staying power on the postseason stage, annual playoff runs can get pricey as well. For years, perennial postseason participants like Alabama fans have bemoaned their college football first world problem: championship chases are expensive to follow. Georgia fans at the Sugar Bowl were dreading the potential need to fly to Phoenix for a semifinal had the Dawgs advanced. The common line of thinking is that Delta Airlines gouges flights from their Atlanta home base (and thus, effectively levies a tax on the fanbase) to wherever Georgia's bowl site happens to be. 

Indiana fans have had a dream playoff run that did not include a home game because of its first0round bye, so trips to Los Angeles, Atlanta and now Miami aren't cheap. As one Indiana fan put it: "I have a wife at home who I've barely seen this month"

There is a steep price for success in college football. But whether the tickets are from Herran, or Stubhub, or if you're lucky enough to get them at face value through the schools, for a once-in-a lifetime CFP run, the cost is often deemed worth it.