Ticket Watch is Worth the Drive, Worth the Wait
I was gonna do one of these, then I wasn’t, then I was, then I…whatever it’ll be a short one though. The main impetus for doing it is:
The speculators have skedaddled and these have come down to a reasonable $61, with $50 tickets popping up here and there in the upper bowl. What I think happened here is when the field was announced this was obviously the hottest ticket, given all the big schools in driving range, and speculators jumped into the market. Now it’s time for them to get out and prices have deflated between 40-50 percent because of it.
That’s the good news. The bad news is Kentucky and Louisville are still both in town, while tomorrow’s St. Patrick’s Day, which means anywhere but the arena is going to be packed to the gills with hillbillies in their cups.
Round 2 (if necessary)
If Michigan makes it to the next round, tickets will go in a flash, but you’ll be able to pick one up for about that outside if history is any judge. Plans will have to come together in a hurry once they announce the time, but if Michigan gets an early Sunday afternoon timeslot it’s likely to draw more fans who can justify a last-minute day trip out of it. Night draws: notsomuch, since a 5-hour drive that starts after dark when Monday’s a work day is unlikely to get past the committee.
Strategy-wise if we draw the noon or 2:30 slot jump on those at $80. If it’s a night game and you’re already committed, I bet they’ll drop to something more like $60 online the night before, with lots of last-minute seats around for cheap. Right now it’s $111 but that is speculator pricing.
And Beyond?
Kansas City is too far for a majority of Michigan fans to drive—even for the large Chicago contingent it’s ~9 hours. Oregon (the #3 seed) fans won’t get there en masse either. However if Creighton comes out of that part of the bracket, Omaha is very nearby, and could drive up the price considerably. Otherwise expect that to act a lot like a low bowl game, with tickets overpriced online and cheap on the ground.
Kansas would be the likely Elite 8 draw if that happens, and at that point it’s a virtual Jayhawks home game. It’s too hard to predict prices for that but even in that case tickets the day of the game tend to come down sharply from where they were earlier.
Seth, I'm not Mr. Experience here, but isn't the fact that the Sunday session will share a ticket with the Kentucky game a concern? Kentucky fans are close, are experienced with Indianapolis, and travel better than any other fanbase in the country. We aren't playing the same game, but given the same tickets it seems like prices will probably be high, unless Kentucky is upset tomorrow, in which case tickets will be a song.
Sounds good.
Hey man - shoot me an email. I'm in Southern Indiana and driving up with my dad.
My email address is jwhouchin (at) gmail (dot) com
Thanks!
If available, please advise...coming from Cleveland. Early start to get there. And...am originally from AA, too.
I disagree with the call on the Sweet Sixteen in KC, because that's a single ticket for the session. So, if KU makes it through, you're not buying the Michigan / Oregon or Michigan / Creighton game, you're buying the KU game and getting the Michigan game as a throw-in. I expect prices to be accordingly high.
Of course -- it'd be a good problem to have. :-)
March 16th, 2017 at 11:00 PM ^
they're not clearing the venue between the sweet 16 games. One ticket gets you in to both of the games.
March 17th, 2017 at 10:08 AM ^
That's factored in! Those seats would be $85 or $60 now without the L'ville/Ky bump. The speculators and the Kentucky fans bought up what they wanted, and then there were still upper bowl seats. You can see lower bowl prices are really high--that's the uber fans' market. I figure those who are looking for cheap seats are playing the get-in market, especially since moving up to better seats is always available in these games as fans don't sit in for both sessions.
It's a risk but those tickets are basically the ticket version of Uber: they'll put you in touch with someone who's selling and you have to work it out with them. If you are going to be late however that isn't nice to the people whose tickets you're buying.
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