Texas Football vs MLS: Two Falling Price Curves

October 31 is shaping up to be a split-screen night for ticket shoppers: a ranked college football showdown in Austin and an MLS clash in St. Louis. Both tickets have been sliding since early October. Neither is sliding at the same speed — and the gap tells you something real about how different sports price their biggest nights.

College Football's Steep Slide

The Mississippi State at #11 Texas game at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium has been tracked since October 2, 2026. It opened at $161 on October 3, climbed through the month, and hit its recorded low of $95 on October 22 — a drop of roughly 41% from peak to trough in under three weeks. As of October 26, the listed price sits at $110, with the 30-day median running at $111.78 and the last seven days down another 4%.

That $95-to-$161 swing matters more when you put it next to the college football price index, which shows a median get-in price across 290 upcoming games of just $29 as of October 25. A ranked Top 25 matchup commands a real premium over the sport's typical floor — the kind of gap that separates a marquee Saturday from the other 289 games on the board.

MLS's Gentler Curve

Across the country, the San Diego FC at St Louis CITY SC match at Energizer Park tells a quieter story. Also tracked since October 2, it opened at $57 and bottomed out at $42 on October 22 — a 26% drop from its high. As of today, it's listed from $49, with a 30-day median of $52 and the same 4% weekly dip we're seeing in Austin.

Same tracking window, same general direction, half the volatility. Soccer tickets in this market simply don't swing as hard as a ranked college football game does, even when both are heading the same way.

What the Research Says

Both games fit the broader pattern our own research keeps turning up. Looking at 349 sports events from 30 days out to game day, our best-time-to-buy data shows a median price change of -20%. Zoom into just the final two weeks before kickoff or puck drop, across 696 sports events, and the median move is -13%, with 65% of those games getting cheaper. The Texas and St. Louis numbers both sit comfortably inside that range — they're not outliers, they're the pattern in action.

What they're not is identical. A Top 25 college football ticket has further to fall because it started higher, while an MLS regular-season match moves in a narrower band the whole way through. If you're watching either board between now and October 31, the smart move is the same one our data always points to: compare the all-in price against the median for that event, not just the headline number on day one.

For more of this kind of side-by-side, the full sports calendar is worth a scroll — Halloween weekend isn't the only split-screen night on it.