Ticket brokers buy seats to national sporting events like the Super Bowl and the Final Four, anticipating that demand will send prices soaring. But with a poor economy and the uncertainty associated with wartime, it's a fan's paradise in the ticket-buying world.
An all-session ticket for a decent seat for all three Final Four games at the Superdome in New Orleans -- two on Saturday and one on Monday -- can be had for $400, up from their $120 to $160 face value. Plenty of tickets were still on the market on Tuesday, but that could change should demand increase once disappointed fans shut out of their school's ticket lottery begin to scour Web sites and speed dial local brokers for the best values.
The NCAA gives each school 4,500 tickets. That wasn't enough to cover demand for a small school like Marquette, and unlikely to be enough for the University of Texas.
Even though the Golden Eagles haven't been to the Final Four since 1977, the private school in Milwaukee has a smaller alumni and fan base than the other three schools. Marquette's 10,600 student population, for example, pales in comparison to the 14,500 students at Syracuse, 29,000 at the University of Kansas and 52,000 at the University of Texas.
"When the (Wisconsin) Badgers went to the Final Four in 2000, we sold tickets for about 50 percent higher than we're selling them now," said Mike Holzberger, owner of Connections Ticket Service, based in Milwaukee. "Marquette just doesn't have the same fan base as these state schools have."
Since Sept. 11, 2001, air travel has been curtailed, much to the airline industry's chagrin. Still, a flight to New Orleans in time for the Final Four will be costly: $643 to fly from Austin on Delta, $647 from Milwaukee on Continental, $853 from Kansas City with one stop on Delta, and a wopping $1,620 with a stop from Syracuse.
But Texas fans from Austin are just a nine-hour drive to New Orleans. Lawrence, Kan., is 15½ hours away, Milwaukee is 17 hours away and Syracuse is a 23-hour drive. "People, for the most part, still don't want to fly when they don't have to," said Steve Remeni, owner of The Ticket Company in Houston.
The shortest driving distance combined with the large alumni and current student body make Longhorn fans rabid ticket buyers, said Randy Cohen, whose Ticketcity.com is based on the University of Texas' Austin campus.
"The NCAA allotment is not enough for Longhorn fans," Cohen said. "It's a very reasonable market, considering you can get in for $200." Cohen hedged his bets last year, predicting Texas would go the Final Four this year. Although he still has more than 250 tickets for sale, he doesn't think he'll get stuck with many of them.
"The corporate dollar drives the market and New Orleans isn't Tampa, Atlanta or San Diego, in that there's not a lot of corporate business there," Cohen said. "Individual fans aren't willing to spend as much with the war going on and the economy being the way it is. People don't have the money that they did during the dot-com years."
Remeni said the big dome arenas, like the 54,500-seat Superdome, keep ticket supply high.
The most popular tickets being sold on eBay are in the $200 to $400-per-ticket range. Tickets cannot be sold for more than face value in the state of Louisiana, but there are no limitations if the buyer or the seller is from another state, said eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove.
Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at Darren.rovell@espn3.com
