CoachHal.com

By Don Kausler Jr. -- The Birmingham News
December 18, 2009, 7:08AM

The 91,000-seat Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, Calif., will be the site of the Jan. 7 national championship game between No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Texas.TUSCALOOSA -- The last 2,000 of 91,000 tickets available at face value to the Jan. 7 national cham­pionship game in Pasadena, Calif., sold in a matter of minutes Tuesday morning. And then the flurry turned to fury.

"If we had a 500,000-seat sta­dium, I could fill it," said Mitch Dorger, the CEO of the Tourna­ment of Roses, which is managing the BCS title game between top­-ranked Alabama (13-0) and sec­ond- ranked Texas (13-0).

"We're sold out."

Yet, that doesn't mean tickets are unavailable.

The market merely has switched from direct sales through the schools and the Tournament of Roses to a boom­ing secondary market.

RazorGator.com is the official ticket exchange site, but it is far from the only player in this multi­million-dollar game. Sam Soni, the executive vice president of procurement for RazorGator.com, estimates that more than 1,000 businesses or individuals operate Web sites that broker hard-to-get tickets.

Players include online giants eBay and Craigslist, general cy­bermarkets where tickets can be sold and bought. Other sites such as StubHub.com specialize in ticket sales.

On RazorGator.com on Thurs­day alone, 563 tickets were for sale ranging from $773 to $2,697 each.

One group of 19 tickets in row 35 of a corner section is available at $910 each. At the $275 face value, those tickets are worth $5,225. The markup means a profit of $9,632 for the seller and $2,413 for Razorgator.com.

"The secondary market operates in a strange and mysterious way," Dorger said. "They get tickets from sources I'm un­aware of. It's like concerts. It's like every sporting event. These guys make a busi­ness out of getting the tickets."

Is he troubled by that marketplace?

"In a way," he said. "It's people who are making money off of something that I'm not making money off of."

Outraged fans

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Finally, after we have discussed this for years...Coach

Tuscaloosa News Published: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA | University of Alabama Director of Athletics Mal Moore has persuaded his Southeastern Conference peers to ask the league office to make adjustments to the SEC's 2010 football schedule, as well as it's upcoming 10-year release of future schedules, to bring more equity to the number of games each team must play against an opponent coming off an idle week.

Following a story by The Tuscaloosa News that revealed the Crimson Tide will have played more than three times as many idle-rested SEC opponents as any other school in the league over a four-year span ending in 2010, Moore said he would bring the issue to the attention of the league's athletic directors at their next meeting.

That meeting took place Tuesday morning in Birmingham, and SEC Associate Commissioner Charles Bloom said his office will now seek to make necessary changes.

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Fellow tailgaters,

Times are good for Alabama fans. For Coach’s thoughts on Santa and Pasadena, Tim Tebow, Mark Ingram, the Heisman, and bandwagon fans, please read on:

1. Coach chatted with Santa this weekend while Claire discussed her preferred list with him. Coach said “Santa, we need some more tickets to the big game in Pasadena.” Mr. Claus looked Coach right in the eye and said “If you can find any, tell ‘em the Big Man needs two.” Classic moment.

2. We have reserved our hotel rooms for next year’s SEC Championship Game in Atlanta and also the 2011 BCS title game in Glendale, AR. You gotta believe…

3. Tim Tebow is the real deal. Can you imagine acting like Tebow did Saturday night if you had just had your heart ripped out the previous week? This guy is a total class act and Coach respects him tremendously. From Cecil Hurt’s Sunday article:

Tebow said he tried to help Ingram deal with the emotions that were clearly weighing on him going into the ceremony.

“I’m a realist,” Tebow said. “I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to win. But I saw that Mark was really nervous and I asked him if he wanted to pray and he did. So we found a private room and we prayed, just the two of us. We prayed for him to find peace, not for someone to win the trophy.”

4. Mark Ingram. What a story of how he got to Alabama and the connections of Saban and his parents. Very proud for him and his speech showed a humble side.

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