BOULDER — Coach Prime might have already beaten Nebraska before his CU Buffs take a snap.
VividSeats.com told The Post this week that based on seats sold and market trends, the popular ticketing site is projecting via its “Fan Forecast” algorithm that 60% of the crowd at Folsom Field for Deion Sanders’ home debut will be wearing CU gold on Saturday.
That would flip the crowd makeup at Folsom for this tilt from four years earlier, when Cornhuskers fans in September 2019 accounted for an estimated 60-65% of the sellout crowd.
That ratio disappointed Buffs athletic department officials both privately and publicly, despite it being the most profitable football weekend in modern CU history up to that date.
Athletic director Rick George has been pleading in the months leading up to Saturday’s game for Buffs fans to “keep the red out” for Sanders’ debut, and to some degree, VividSeats says, he might just get his wish.
Especially with CU’s stunning Week 1 win at then-No. 17 TCU having vaulted the Buffs into the AP Top 25 — at No. 22 — after just one game. It’s the earliest CU football has appeared in the national polls since September 2003.
VividSeats’ projection passes the eye test to at least one local Buffs fan with Nebraska ties. Ben Cary is a Denverite who grew up in Greeley rooting for CU but whose mother Annette is a Nebraska alum. He and his sister recently gifted their mom four tickets for Saturday via the secondary market, at a cost of $1,300. That’s roughly double what four seats would have cost them for the 2019 game, which the Buffs rallied to win 34-31 in overtime.
Cary credits the combination of Huskers demand and Coach Prime for the sky-high prices. But he thinks local curiosity toward Sanders and his Buffs, and the increased interest of neutrals along the Front Range, could give the home team an edge in terms of crowd representation.
“I think this year it’s going to be close to 50-50, and I think CU fans will barely outnumber Nebraska (supporters),” Cary said. “(It will be) 51-49% gold. I’m optimistic. I really do think there’s huge hype with Coach Prime.”
On the weekend of the Broncos’ opener, at home against the hated Raiders, a chance to watch Sanders — and not Sean Payton and Russell Wilson — is the hottest football ticket in town.
How massive is Prime Mania right now? The lowest get-in price for the CU Buffs’ home opener against Nebraska is $305, before fees, per VividSeats.com as of Wednesday afternoon. That’s nearly three times the cost of the cheapest ticket for Broncos-Raiders ($112 before fees).
Add it all up, and you’re staring at the most expensive seats in Buffs athletics history.
StubHub.com data says CU-Nebraska is the site’s highest average ticket price for any Pac-12 game since 2018. A company rep told The Post that sales on the site have jumped almost 40% following the Buffs’ season-opening win in Fort Worth. And it’s the most expensive StubHub.com ticket, in terms of average seat price, for a Pac-12 home game this season.
“I remember some hot CU-Nebraska matchups back to the Big Eight Conference days, or in 1996, when the Huskers were the preseason No. 1,” Zach Anderson, president at TicketCity.com, told The Post via email. “And I haven’t seen anything that approaches the excitement we’ve seen for this year’s matchup.”
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.