If Arizona is your aim, figure on paying big time for big game

It’s a seller’s market.

By the time this is all said and done, University of Oregon football season-ticket holders who were able to get one of the 12,500 BCS National Championship game tickets through the UO are going to come out feeling like they got a bargain — for only $345 a ticket! Heck, that’s only about $100 per hour of football.

The deadline for 43,000 season-­ticket holders to apply was 5 p.m. Monday — by which time 13,516 tickets were requested. Those Duck Athletic Fund donors who’ve had season tickets the longest and contributed the most money over the years will have priority for those coveted tickets to the title game against Auburn on Jan. 10 in Glendale, Ariz. All season-ticket holders should know their fate by Wednesday, athletic department officials said.

The UO and Auburn are getting about 17,000 tickets each from the Fiesta Bowl, host of this year’s national championship game. About 4,500 tickets provided to the UO will go to players and coaches to give to family and friends, athletic department officials, administrators and others affiliated with the university.

The other 38,000 or so tickets available for the championship game at 72,200-seat University of Phoenix Stadium have gone to corporate sponsors and Fiesta Bowl-affiliated ticket holders, Fiesta Bowl spokeswoman Lauren Sujkowski said. The University of Phoenix Stadium is home to the actual Fiesta Bowl, between Oklahoma and Connecticut on Jan. 1, as well as to the national title game between the UO and Auburn 10 days later.

So what other options are out there for Duck fans who want to go to the biggest game in the 116-year history of UO football?

Well, how much money do you have? Because you’re going to have to buy your tickets from some of the aforementioned folks who will dangle them in front of you online like glittering pieces of gold.

“I try to explain to people that this is not just another bowl game,” said Lauri Quinby, a travel agent at Premier Travel in Springfield. “It’s a new stadium (opened in 2006); any seat really is a great seat.”

Like several travel agencies in Eugene-Springfield, Premier is busy selling flight/hotel packages to Phoenix for the game. But most of those packages do not include game tickets. And if you can’t get them through the UO, you’ll have to resort to buying them on the second­hand market for two or three times or more than face value.

The average resale price Monday for the Oregon-Auburn game was $1,185, according to the ticket search engine FanSnap.

A perusal Monday of www.stubhub.com, the online ticket reseller that has contracted with the Fiesta Bowl, found more than 5,500 tickets for sale to the game, ranging from the lowest price of $694 for “nose-bleed” seats in the corners of the terrace level, to a $267,500 club-level suite for four on the stadium’s south side, which will be the Oregon side.

Is that price for real? Who knows? It was listed, as were other suite prices of $25,000, $79,900 and $95,000.

Prices on craigslist Monday listed tickets for $700, or four for $2,500; six tickets on the main level, row 41 between the 40- and 50-yard line, for $12,000 on the Auburn side; four tickets for $3,200 in the “ring of honor” level on the 40-yard line of the Auburn side; and $1,800 a seat for six seats in section 110, row 13, at the 30-yard line on the Oregon side.

At those prices, airfare and hotel costs will seem minimal.

Oregon fans started booking flights and hotel rooms in the Phoenix area weeks ago, and trying to catch a flight out of Eugene at this point is like trying to catch UO running back LaMichael James from behind. Not impossible, but not likely.

“Not very many, but a few,” said Danielle Johnson, an agent with Sunrise Travel in Eugene. Johnson found a Jan. 9 flight out of Eugene to Phoenix on Delta Airlines for just $356. But that included a zigzag of stops in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, and a return trip on Jan. 12 — two days after the game — through Long Beach, Calif., and Seattle. She also found a direct flight from Eugene to Phoenix on Delta on Jan. 8 for $510, returning on Jan. 12 on US Air through Long Beach and Seattle.

If you want to return on Jan. 11, Johnson and other agents can probably find you a flight, if you want to pay more than $1,000.