The recent announcement by UGA that standard tickets to home games at Sanford Stadium will increase from $50 face value to $55 (for non-Power 5 opponents) or $75 (for Power 5 opponents) is intriguing on a number of different levels. For one, the Bulldogs’ decision to implement a two-tiered scheme for home tickets, although nothing new, hasn’t been practiced at Georgia for over 30 years. Secondly, the program just recently raised ticket costs—like only last year from $45 to $50—while the $75 price for the majority of the home games (four to three in 2018) seems rather steep, at least to me.

Perhaps unbeknownst to many Bulldog enthusiasts, Georgia operated a tiered system for home tickets beginning with the dedication of Sanford Stadium and continued to do so for essentially the next 55 years. In 1929, the face value of a ticket to Georgia-Yale—the first game played at Sanford Stadium—was $3. For the Bulldogs’ next home game against Auburn five weeks later, the cost had dropped to $2.50, yet three weeks later at home versus Georgia Tech, the price of a ticket was $3 again.

For certain seasons, home ticket prices were on a three-tiered basis, like in 1948 when games against Chattanooga and Furman were $3, $3.60 for Kentucky, and $4.20 against North Carolina and Georgia Tech. For most of the 1950s and into the 1960s, a two-tiered scheme similar to today’s was in place, like in 1963 when a ticket to the South Carolina game was $4.50, yet it cost $5 to see Georgia versus Alabama, Vanderbilt, or Auburn. For the 20 years which followed, a two-tiered basis was implemented only when the Bulldogs hosted Georgia Tech, whereby all home games were priced the same except when facing the Yellow Jackets, which was priced a tad higher. The 1984 season was the final time (until 2018) when Georgia tickets were on a tiered basis.

Using a number of various reliable resources, and after a good bit of research, I discovered the standard ticket cost to nearly every home game at Sanford Stadium from 1929 to the present. For each season, I decided to only focus on the top-tiered cost which, as mentioned, was against top-notch opposition and/or Georgia Tech until the mid-1980s, the common cost for all home games from 1985 through last season, and will be the most prevalent cost in 2018.

The price of a Bulldog home game has come a long way since the $3 to attend the Yale contest in 1929. Still, considering inflation over nearly the last 90 years, a ticket increase of $72 to $75 might not be as extreme as it initially seems.

Using the top-tier ticket data, I’ve included in the table below (beginning in 1929) the 10 instances when there was a notable increase in face value and/or inflation-adjusted 2018 dollars (rounded to nearest dollar) from the previous season:

Better yet, I plotted below the top-tier ticket prices in accordance with inflation-adjusted 2018 dollars (rounded to nearest dollar) for Georgia home games from 1929 through 2018. You can draw your own conclusions, but here is what I observe in a nutshell:

Following an up-and-down cycle, there was little change in cost per ticket from around the end of World War II until the mid-1970s (high 30s to mid-40s). Beginning then through the early 1980s, ticket prices dropped, plummeting to as low as 27 inflation-adjusted dollars in 1981. For the majority of the 1980s and 1990s, the inflation-adjusted cost was in the low- to mid-30s annually until 1999. It was that season when face value increased at least $5 for the first time ($22 to $27) while the inflation-adjusted dollars reached $40 for the first time in almost a quarter-century. From there, inflation-adjusted dollars increased with each increase in face value ($27 to $32 to $40 to $45). Last season’s increase to $50 was the first time the inflation-adjusted cost was $50 since 1942 (no wonder most spectators back then wore fancy suits and dresses to games).

This brings us to the upcoming season, 2018, when, whether a face value of $75 or inflation-adjusted cost of $75 (obviously), or you could even consider the average ticket price of $66.43 (three games at $55, four games at $75), a ticket to a Georgia home game is at an unprecedented cost level and, comparatively speaking in regards to prices to enter Sanford Stadium from yesteryear, seems rather steep, at least to me.