NCAA Tournament

KU punched Final Four ticket... and tickets punched back with soaring opening prices

The national championship game will be played in New Orleans this year, just as it was in 2012.
The national championship game will be played in New Orleans this year, just as it was in 2012. AP

As the Final Four field came into the focus, the price for tickets soared.

On Sunday night, the average price for a semifinal-round ticket for Saturday’s games in New Orleans was $487, the highest in at least a decade, according to online ticket broker Ticket IQ.

The national semifinals have that kind of appeal: This will be the first (and last) NCAA Tournament meeting between bitter rivals Duke and North Carolina, in the final weekend on the bench for Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski. He’s announced his retirement after 42 seasons at Duke and is bidding for his sixth national championship.

Fans who can’t get into Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham or the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill for a Duke-North Carolina contest should find tickets easier to come by for the Final Four — for a price. The Superdome will seat 78,000 for the Final Four games.

The opener — Kansas vs. Villanova — isn’t exactly an undercard. The No. 1-seeded Jayhawks and No. 2 Wildcats are the top two seeds remaining.

This story was originally published March 28, 2022 at 11:20 AM with the headline "KU punched Final Four ticket... and tickets punched back with soaring opening prices."

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Blair Kerkhoff
The Kansas City Star
Blair Kerkhoff has covered sports for The Kansas City Star since 1989. He was elected to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023.
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