Madison Square Garden Has Most Expensive NCAA Tournament Tickets Outside Final Four
Madison Square Garden will be hosting its first NCAA Tournament games since 1961. In that time, the Garden has hosted the Big East Tournament and NIT games, but none of those can create the excitement of the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight in the World’s Most Famous Arena. When you look at prices for NCAA Tournament tickets on the secondary market you can see that ticket buyers are also excited for the March Madness at MSG.
Madison Square Garden NCAA tickets for all sessions have an average price of $499.09, the highest of NCAA Tournament session outside of the Final Four. Sweet 16 tickets at MSG have an average price of $510.71 with a get-in price of $184, while the Elite Eight game in Session 2 has an average price of $494.37 with a get-in price of $181.
Second- and third-round games will be taking place in Buffalo, Orlando, Milwaukee, Spokane, Raleigh, San Antonio, San Diego and St. Louis. Across all of those locations, the average price for the rounds of 64 and 32 is $182.08, around the get-in price for games at the Garden.
Games at MSG are also well above the other venues hosting regional final games. The West Regional, which is at the Honda Center in Anaheim, is the closest to MSG with an average price of $302.72. This year’s ticket average at the FedEx Forum in Memphis, host of the South Regional, is $230.11. Get-in prices for both sessions in Memphis can be had for under $80, over $100 less than what it costs to get into the MSG regional games. Despite having the deepest section of the bracket, Midwest regional tickets at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium are the cheapest of all regional hosts, at only $205.32, just above the average across the second and third rounds. The average price for the Elite Eight game is barely above the get-in price at MSG at $187.21.
AT&T Stadium will be the host of this year’s Final Four and is the only Tourney venue with more expensive tickets than Madison Square Garden, with Final Four tickets in Arlington averaging $678. It’s likely that Final Four games at the Garden would surpass any precedent set from past hosts, though fans heading to the Garden this year will have to settle for regional games. With how ticket quantity has been dropping since Sunday, fans are clearly just happy to have the Tournament return to the World’s Most Famous Arena.
For more on NCAA Tournament tickets, check out this article on Forbes.
