When the brackets were released for this year’s NCAA Tournament, Greenville, SC’s 1st round sessions were sold out by the next day. With national power houses North Carolina and Duke along with home-state favorite South Carolina in the same building, and fans’ ability to travel by car (Less than a 250 mile drive from Durham to Greenville) to support their squads, Friday’s 1st and 2nd sessions are the hottest tickets in the nation. But you don’t have to take my word for it, just look at the secondary market for tickets.
On StubHub, a stip of tickets to Friday’s and Sunday’s games in Greenville starts at $650. That’s the most expensive in the nation with Sacramento a distant second at $259 for a strip of tickets to 1st and 2nd round sessions.
In addition to Greensboro being the hottest overall location for the 1st and 2nd rounds, their 2nd session games on Friday, featuring Duke vs Troy and South Carolina vs Marquette, is the hottest ticket in the country with seats starting at $240 and going for as much as $1,225.
Gamecock fans’ demand for tickets is so high (the men’s basketball team hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament in over a decade) that the university issued a statement explaining why most requests could not be honored.
The ticket requests for our first appearance in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament since 2004 has been overwhelming. Unfortunately, the NCAA limits participating institutions to just 450 tickets, which covers the parents of our team’s student-athletes, player guests, coaches and staff as well as all University constituents. The majority of tickets for the Greenville sessions were sold by the NCAA and Bon Secours Wellness Arena in advance of Selection Sunday.
Following our selection to Greenville, the Athletics Department made attempts to secure more tickets for fans who requested them, but were not able to get them.
With the close proximity of the game in Greenville, the Gamecock Club and Athletics Ticket Office were unable to fulfill the vast majority of ticket requests from members and the University community. At the end of the request period, the Athletics Department had received requests for more than 2,000 tickets.
But if you’re not one of the lucky 15,951 fans with tickets to attend, click the link to find out how to watch on television. Also, Carolina Blitz will be in the building providing extensive coverage of this weekend’s games on our website, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or SnapChat. Happy March Madness!