Back at the beginning of May, I received a text from a person I hadn’t had a long conversation with since high school. The subject: the Sept. 9 UGA-Notre Dame football game.

It was one of those names that pop up on your phone and you wonder what in the world is going on in your hometown for this person to be reaching out to you.

But that wasn’t the goal of the conversation.

To paraphrase, the text read something along the lines of, “Hey I am looking for tickets to the Georgia-Notre Dame game, but they are too expensive. Can you keep an eye out for me?”

I said yes because that is the nice thing to do but really, my means of getting someone a ticket is just as hard as everyone else’s. And if I am being honest, this was not the first time someone had reached out to me in regard to tickets to the Notre Dame game; I would be so bold to say it happens to a lot of Georgia students.

I hate to burst some bubbles, but we are in the same boat as everyone else. And it’s still 116 days away!

Just out of sheer curiosity I looked around at some ticket prices when my friend from high school texted me. I told her I would, so I did.

My thought process? Surely, the tickets are not THAT expensive.

Oh, boy was I wrong; I should have known better, really.

From what I gathered just through the few minutes I spent in between classes looking up tickets, the average price for one ticket in the lower level was roughly $500 on VividSeats. Overall, prices range range from $305 to $1394

But, you and I both know that there is a great number of people who are going to pay that, and much more, to see this game.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know a great many people who have paid upwards of an arm and a leg to come to Sanford Stadium, so I believe this number to be pretty accurate.   

But there is a difference in this game that we are counting down the days to than any other Georgia game on the 2017 schedule.

This is the Notre Dame game. It is the one everyone wants to see.

I texted my uncle the other day — he went to the 1981 Sugar Bowl. The game that put all the future Notre Dame-Georgia games on the map.

I asked him how much he paid for that ticket.

“I think it was like 40 or 50 dollars,” he said.

So, yeah just so you know, the average price for a ticket to the Notre Dame-Georgia game has increased by a whopping 900 percent over the past 36 years.

Yep, you read that right. Talk about an inflation.

Now, I know there are a lot of variables that go into that number, like 36 years of variables and the fact that we are no longer living in the 80s for example, BUT STILL.

The game being held this fall isn’t a Sugar Bowl. At the end of the game, Georgia could be undefeated on the season but it won’t be 12-0, but 2-0 if all goes well. More so, the 2016 season didn’t go entirely well for the two programs either, and yet people are still paying big bucks for the tickets.

But the trend has been set and has been for 36 years — it’s the Notre Dame-Georgia game after all. So, why not?

And with that, I bid you a happy ticket-hunting season. May the odds be in your favor.

(For information and buy tickets – check out vividseats.com.)