I've been lucky enough to catch most of the Sugar Bowls over the last 15 years.
Tickets are fairly easy to come by EVERY year that:
- It is not the National Championship Game
- LSU is not playing
I once had someone offer me 2K per ticket for my AWESOME National Championship Tix where LSU beat OU a few years back.... Besides that "double wammy" of LSU and a National championship, I have been able to get tickets in the days, hours, minutes before the game at or LESS THAN FACE VALUE.
From my experience, when tickets go on sale to the public, some jackass buys as many tickets as he can thinking he will make a killing on them.... But the demand isn't there.
One reason I think is airfare... If you are pricing airfare into MSY around the bowl game, you have noticed the prices are really expensive... Same with hotels... Its not cheap... so people who said they were "in" when it came time to buy game tickets, suddenly flake when it comes down to thrown' down the credit card for airline and hotels... I'm sure some of you have already experienced this.
The combo of the expensive airfare and hotels prevents alot of folks from making the trip without tickets. I would guess most Ark fans will drive in.. but there will still be a surplus of tickets.
My advice.... SCREW the scalpers... Go down to NOLA.. have a great time... try to score tickets before the game.. and if you don't, EVERY bar in town will have the game on and you will still have a great time!
Anyhow, Just my theory based on attending most of the last 15 Sugar Bowls.