By Rick Horrow and Karla Swatek
January 7, 2013
The BCS National Championship between Alabama and Notre Dame isn’t just a matchup of two of college football’s most iconic teams; it’s one of the biggest games in the history of the sport. Tickets to the game are selling on StubHub for $1,900 each, a record for the website and 25% higher than the previous most expensive sporting event, last year’s BCS game between Alabama and LSU. On television, the game almost assuredly will shatter the cable viewership record of 27 million set by the 2011 BCS title game between Auburn and Oregon.
The game will be a boon for the South Florida economy, which projects more than $200 million in economic impact from the BCS championship and the New Years Day Orange Bowl. Ultimately, the root of all the added excitement and money is the presence of Notre Dame, which hasn’t won a national championship since 1988, yet still is the second most popular team amongst college football fans.
