While tickets for Monday's BCS Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama are going for $1,500 to $2,000 per ticket, fans could have bought an option earlier in the season if your favorite team reached the game to buy a ticket at face value.

The service was provided by TeamTix in collaboration with Orbitz.

A fan of Notre Dame could have bought an option for $200 and then pay $500 for the ticket when they advanced to the game.

This market isn’t much of a financial gamble for game organizers, according to Kenneth Shropshire, a sports-law expert at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

“Here’s another source of revenue for them, allowing them to take up some of the space of scalpers and ticket agencies,” Shropshire says.