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          Tech - ESPN Playbook

          BCS title game rules StubHub, web searches

          The BCS National Championship has dominated StubHub sales as well as Yahoo! and Google searches this week. Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
          • Katie Linendoll, TechnologyJan 7, 2013, 12:30 PM ET
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              Katie Linendoll is an Emmy Award-winning technology expert contributing to ESPN, ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. She contributes tech segments to CNN and hosts a tech show on Spike TV. She has a degree in Information Technology New Media from Rochester Institute of Technology and is a diehard Buffalo Bills fan.
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          All the buzz, BCS.

          Let’s hope the ticket is worth every penny for the privileged 75,000-plus attending tonight’s BCS National Championship. Because those fans sure have shelled out a lot of them.

          When Notre Dame and Alabama meet under the lights at Sun Life Stadium in Miami, fans will have paid an average of $1,780 per ticket. That’s nearly six times the $300 to $350 face value of tickets. According to StubHub, the game is the top-selling event in the website’s history. As of publication, the highest ticket price was $28,000 for an entire executive suite, and the event has drawn more than 3.8 million page views, according to StubHub.

          StubHub isn’t the only place page views and searches are soaring. According to Google, searches for “BCS National Championship” are 74 percent higher in 2013 than in 2012, and right now, search interest for "Alabama" is 73 percent higher than “Notre Dame” over the past week.

          The search wizards at Yahoo! are seeing just the opposite. There, “Notre Dame football” searches are more than double the number of Alabama searches in the past week. Overall searches are way up, with “Alabama vs. Notre Dame” searches rocketing 803 percent this week.

          Other interesting stats:

          • On Google, search interest for "Crimson Tide" is 368 percent higher than search interest for "Fighting Irish" over the last week.

          • On Google, search interest for "Nick Saban" is 112 percent higher than search interest for "Brian Kelly" over the past seven days.

          • On Yahoo!, slightly more women are searching for Notre Dame football than Alabama football.

          • On Yahoo!, Manti Te’o is the top-searched player for both teams, and searches for Te’o’s girlfriend have even spiked.

          Why is the interest (and price) so high? To begin with, the two teams are rich in tradition; together they boast a total of 18 national championships. They also have national fan bases willing to travel. And although Alabama is playing in its third BCS Championship in four years, Notre Dame hasn’t played for a title in 24 years.

          Considering the high demand, perhaps the NCAA should consider finding bigger stadiums for their biggest game of the season. For example, Cowboys Stadium has a capacity over 105,000 -- nearly 30 percent more than the 75,540 Sun Life usually holds. In fact, Sun Life Stadium has added approximately 1,000 temporary seats on the field behind the south sideline to accommodate a larger crowd.

          If you’re looking for me during the game, don’t search too hard in the stands. My plan is to find a bar offering 25-cent wings. I’ll use my $1,780 to order 7,120 medium-flavored wings with a couple dozen sides of blue cheese. Who’s with me? Stay classy readers ...