UVA-Duke Hottest Ticket In Town

jerryratcliffe.com

Posted on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, 8:00 am

Follow Jerry Ratcliffe on Twitter

Advertising inquiries: Connect with us

Email Jerry Ratcliffe: jratcliffe7000@gmail.com

 

Photo by Matt Riley | UVA Sports Media Relations

By Scott Ratcliffe

When Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett’s wife is asking around, you know it’s a tough ticket.

Much has been made about Bennett’s wife, Laurel, recently posting on social media wondering if anyone had a spare ticket for arguably the hottest ticket in Cavalier hoops memory this weekend.

There’s no doubt that tickets have been increasingly pricey — and certainly harder to come by — over the Bennett Era, but for Saturday’s sold-out, top-5 rematch against Duke, fans better be ready to break out the old wallet if still scrambling for a seat.

Our friend Nate Rattner, Content Analyst at SeatGeek.com, passed along this nugget (no pun intended) regarding the high demand for Saturday.

Source: SeatGeek

“At an average resale price of $304, this is the hottest UVA basketball home ticket we have seen since SeatGeek began tracking the secondary market in 2010,” said Rattner. “That tops a number of other high-profile ACC matchups at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, including visits from UNC, Syracuse, Duke, and VT over the past few seasons.”

According to Rattner, the average resale price for a UVA home ticket so far this season is $106, making Saturday’s game “a 187-percent increase in demand.”

As Rattner points out, a lot of it has to do with the stellar freshman trio of Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, Cam Reddish, and all of the nationwide Blue Devil hype.

“This Duke team, which features three likely NBA lottery picks, has been the hottest ticket in college basketball across the country this season,” said Rattner. “On average, ticket prices have increased by 178 percent — or, nearly triple from their average — when Duke is the visiting team, compared to the home team’s average ticket price.”

For more, click here.

One poster on Craigslist offers four suite tickets (at the bar, plus one “standing room only” ticket) and a parking pass for $8,000. Not in your price range? Another poster has two tickets and a parking pass available for a cool grand.

As of Tuesday evening, the cheapest single-ticket price for Saturday’s blockbuster matchup on StubHub was going for $222.30. And that’s way up in the corner of JPJ, in Section 304.

A seat in Section 102 behind Coach K and the Duke bench a few rows back is the highest-priced seat on StubHub at $2,849.25.

Single tickets on vividseats.com range from $354.00 (in the opposite upper corner, Section 310) to $3,378.00 behind the Duke bench.

The Virginia athletic department is also offering some lucky Wahoos two different ways to score two tickets in the lower level (Section 115). Fans can either fill out a form inside the arena during ESPN’s College GameDay broadcast (between 9:30 a.m. and 12 noon) for one pair of tickets, or download the Virginia Sports Mobile App to enter for a chance at the other pair.

If Saturday’s game is anything close to the team’s last two meetings, the astronomical prices could very well be worth it for the most die-hard ‘Hoos.