[rmjvol]

A few facts to know if you want to get and use Florida bowl game tickets...

Tickets: Face value is $175. But if you buy through a broker, you might pay $1,200 for an end-zone seat and more than $2,000 to sit on the 50-yard line.

Getting there: Most flights to Phoenix from South Florida are sold out the last few days before the game, although some first-class seats are available for $1,700 round trip. Most flights to nearby Tucson also are sold out. Some fans will fly to Los Angeles (370 miles away), San Diego (350 miles) or Las Vegas (280 miles), then drive or fly the last leg.

Hotels: Most rooms in the Phoenix area are sold out or will cost in excess of $200 a night; some have two- or three-night minimums.

Getting transportation and Florida Bowl game tickets to the Jan. 8 bowl game game in Glendale, Ariz., is pretty difficult.

At a university that draws more than 80,000 fans for every game in The Swamp, there aren't enough tickets to satisfy the insatiable demand of a Gator Nation hoping to celebrate its second national football title in 10 years.

"We were jumping up and down in front of our TV set when the BCS rankings came out and we realized the Gators were going to the national championship game," said Tony Candales, a former UF cheerleader who works as a technology consultant in West Palm Beach. "Then reality set in."

And that sad reality is it's going to take either great connections or deep pockets to witness the Gators against top-ranked Ohio State at the University of Phoenix Stadium, especially if you didn't get one of the 73,000 tickets at a face value of $175.

Candales was unable to get any of the 16,000 tickets offered to Florida season-ticket holders. To attend the game with his wife, Barbara, he was looking at paying about $1,200 per ticket to a broker. Add two airline fares of $600 to $700 each and hotels at more than $200 a night, plus other costs, and Candales was looking at spending $6,000.