If seeing the Jayhawks play for the NCAA basketball national championship has always been on your bucket list, you’re probably going to need a bucket load of money — especially if you didn’t make plans in advance to go to New Orleans.
On Sunday afternoon, the best seats at the Superdome for Monday night’s game were listed on StubHub, Ticketmaster’s ticket reselling platform, for $2,000 and up, including a nifty pair of seats in the fourth row of the courtside “Bucket Club” for a mere $9,595 apiece. Somebody had even listed a seat in Row 47 of that section for $20,000. Good luck with that.
For bargain hunters, StubHub showed seats available in the 74,000-seat stadium for as little as $30, but they were in the nosebleed sections, way up high and very far away from the action.
On online seating diagrams, the basketball court seems tiny amid the vastness of the Superdome. Watching from those lofty heights, you might as well be at home in front of your big screen — though that’s no substitute for actually being there.
Ticket prices are likely to fluctuate right up until gametime, especially as disappointed Duke and Villanova fans dump their seats.
But of course, you’d have to get there, too. Lawrencians trying to book last-minute flights to the Big Easy discovered that it was Big Hard and cost Big Money.
According to Expedia, there were a couple seats available on an overnight connecting flight Sunday from Kansas City to New Orleans through Detroit for $1,201 apiece, round trip, and you’ve have to come back late in the week to get that fare — though having to stay a couple extra days in New Orleans is not the worst thing in the world. Flying down Monday would be cheaper — but most available flights were scheduled to land in New Orleans during or after the game.
Of course, for many of those who bleed crimson and blue, the idea of getting to see and cheer the Jayhawks playing North Carolina for the national championship in person, even from faraway seats, is alluring.
The cost: astronomical. The experience: priceless.
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More coverage:
August Rudisell / The Lawrence Times
Andrea LaRayne Etzel via Office of the Governor
Carter Gaskins / Lawrence Times
Tricia Masenthin / The Lawrence Times
