If Georgia fans thought it was difficult for the Bulldogs to play their way into the SEC Championship game, wait until they try to get into the Georgia Dome to watch it.
Never easy to come by, seats for the Dec. 1 title game between UGA and Alabama have already become the toughest ticket in town.
As longtime UGA season-ticket holder Jeff Solomon found out last year, whether you have a team in the title game or not, scoring a seat is an ordeal. Even some of the most generous benefactors don’t get prime seats.
The No. 3-ranked Bulldogs (10-1), who still have to play rival Georgia Tech this Saturday in Athens, have already qualified for championship game for a second straight year as the league’s Eastern Division champion. They’re expected to face Alabama (10-1), as long as the No. 2-ranked Crimson Tide can get past struggling Auburn this Saturday.
It sets up the biggest game for Georgia in 30 years, when the then-No. 1 Bulldogs lost to Penn State in the 1982 Sugar Bowl.
Solomon, who considers himself a pretty ardent supporter of Georgia football, plans to be in the Dome. Owner of an insurance agency in Athens, he has had season tickets for more than 20 years and over that span has donated more than $30,000 to the Hartman Fund, which determines season-ticket priority.
That places Solomon in the 80th percentile of the athletic association’s donors, according to the school website.
But when he and his wife Jan made their way to their seats last December for Georgia’s first SEC title game since 2005, Solomon found out he wasn’t quite the big dog he thought.
“We just kept going up and up and up,” said Solomon, who said his two seats were three rows from the top of the stadium. “I’m happy to go; I’ll sit anywhere. But my wife was so nervous the whole time. She doesn’t like heights and it’s a long way up there. There was a little railing next to her seat and she held on to that thing the whole game.”
The reality is, there are a lot of people trying to get into the SEC title game far and beyond the two participating teams.
Only 16,000 tickets go to the two competing teams, according to the SEC. That leaves another 40,000 that are gobbled up quickly among corporate sponsors (6,800), the SEC and other member schools (4,600), Georgia Dome suite holders (4,600) and lease holders (4,000) and, most notably, the SEC Championship game renewable ticket holders (20,000).
Of Georgia allotment, the Bulldogs must hold out six for each player in uniform (420), 430 for the Redcoat Marching Band, several hundred for UGA and athletic association employees, faculty and staff.
Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity estimated the university would distribute between 12,000 and 13,000 tickets to season-ticket holders. He said they processed requests for 42,000, which that means a lot of disappointed Dogs when notifications are sent out on Wednesday.
“It’s like a bowl game or a lot of other things. There are certain cut-offs,” McGarity said. “But I think everybody understands the process. Obviously when you have that much demand, there will be a lot of disappointed people.”
The smartest people took care of business 20 years ago. When the SEC Championship started in 1992, the league offered annually renewable tickets for face value. With the game played in Birmingham the first two years and featuring Alabama (versus Florida), many Alabama residents bought them.
Hence, Georgia, located just 70 miles from the Dome, may not see a homefield advantage. According to SEC officials, annual championship game sales have renewed on average rate of 96 to 98 percent from year-to-year. That means that most of those Crimson Tide fans who jumped on the 1992 deal to buy renewable tickets are probably still taking advantage of it today.
“There’s probably some truth to that,” said Mark Womack, SEC executive associate commissioner. “We did give people opportunities to purchase a certain level of tickets and carry them over. But it could’ve been anybody. It wasn’t limited to just Alabama people who could have purchase those.”
The SEC still offers the renewable ticket packages, but there is a long waiting list to get in. Womack could not say how long, but fans can apply September 1 through Dec. 31 and openings are rewarded via lottery.
“I know a lot of people in Athens who had the opportunity to join their season-ticket group for the SEC Championship game who are probably kicking themselves in the butt right now for not doing that,” McGarity said.
