About the only thing hotter than tickets for Saturday's showdown between the No. 1 Tennessee Volunteers and the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs is the $1.5 billion Powerball lottery.
According to Vivid Seats, the current "get-in" price -- the cheapest ticket still available -- for Saturday's game at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia, is $568, while seats on the 50-yard line are going for more than $3,200.
The average ticket price for the game is $398, which is more than double the average price for tickets ($136) to last year's game between the teams, which Georgia won 41-17, at Neyland Stadium, en route to winning its first national championship in 41 years. It's also more than every NFL game this week.
According to Vivid Seats, the median listed price for tickets to this game has increased 156% over the course of the season. The winner of Saturday's game will have the inside track to winning the SEC East and playing in the SEC championship game. Both teams are among the top contenders to reach the College Football Playoff.
Saturday we need Dawg Nation to affect the game !! If you can talk when you leave, you didn't yell enough !!
— Coach Kirby Smart (@KirbySmartUGA) October 30, 2022
Over the past five seasons, only one other Georgia game -- a Sept. 21, 2019, home game against Notre Dame -- was a more expensive ticket. The average ticket price for that contest was $540. The Bulldogs defeated the Fighting Irish 23-17 in front of a crowd of more than 93,000 fans between the hedges.
"I know our fan base will be loud and proud," Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart said earlier this week. "Everybody talks about the Notre Dame game, but we want to be louder than that. We want to be there earlier than that. We had some great matchups last year here at home, and I thought [the fans] really affected the game each time we had a big matchup. So we'll need them again and we'll be ready to go."