A flood of cheaper tickets for Saturday's FCS title game featuring North Dakota State and James Madison have hit the market, "thanks to the sale of standing room only tickets early this week," according to Mike McFeely of Fargo-based WDAY-AM. Standing room only tickets for the game at Toyota Stadium in Frisco are "selling for as low as $52 each on the NCAA Ticket Exchange." There are "dozens of SRO tickets available." That, along with game day drawing nearer, appears to be "driving down the price of regular seats, too." According to listings on the NCAA Ticket Exchange, there are "seats available as cheap as $100 each." Shortly after NDSU beat Sam Houston State to qualify for the title game, tickets were "expensive on the secondary market." The "lowest asking price was $300 per ticket; the most expensive was $700 per ticket." The game is a "sellout, with a crowd of about 18,000 expected." NDSU AD Matt Larsen said that the school’s allotment of 5,500 was "sold out" (AREAVOICES.com, 1/3). In Richmond, John O'Connor noted JMU fans for last year's game against Youngstown State "overwhelmed" their opponents in the seats at Toyota Stadium. However, JMU's "rooting advantage this time around isn’t expected to be as pronounced." That is because NDSU's "passionate fan base will be strongly represented, not because JMU fans have backed away from traveling to Frisco." JMU Assistant AD/Ticketing & Customer Relations Michael Carpenter said that the NCAA supplied the school with "5,422 championship tickets." JMU "sold all of them." There are alternate routes to tickets, and Carpenter projects that there could be as many as "10,000 JMU fans at Toyota Stadium" (RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH, 12/30). JMU coach Mike Houston said that the quest for tickets to Saturday's game has been a "contest itself." He said fans are in "a fight right now for every ticket that's out there" (AP, 1/3).
