The pricey tickets to the men's basketball NCAA Final Four next weekend could get an extra squeeze from a mononymous 18-year-old freshman at Duke: Zion.
At 6-foot-7 and 285 pounds, the improbably balletic forward Zion Williamson is a once-in-a-generation player, and fans have been paying a premium to see him all season.
According to ticket reseller SeatGeek, when Duke was on the road this season the resale value of tickets at the host school went up 178 percent, almost threefold.
While Duke is heavily favored, it isn't guaranteed to be one of the Final Four teams playing in the semifinals April 6 at U.S. Bank Stadium. Regardless of who survives and advances, fans now must rely on the secondary market for tickets — and be prepared to crack open their wallets wider for Zion.
The NCAA tightly controls tickets for the Final Four, its marquee event. The tournament ends with the championship game on April 8, expected to draw the largest crowd ever to U.S. Bank Stadium — 72,000 ticketed guests. That's about 4,400 more than attended the 2018 Super Bowl.
SeatGeek analyst Chris Leyden is already tracking the market live and predicts it will be as bouncy as ever.
"Right now prices are fairly average, although so much of the buying doesn't happen until the matchup is set that the prices at this point are of little indication of where they will end up," Leyden said.
According to the NCAA, 35,000 tickets were allocated for the general public, and most of those were sold through a drawing that opened a year ago. Fans paid a nonrefundable $25 to enter the drawing, which included seats for all games.