March Madness: St. John's-Duke Sweet 16 average ticket price a record $601
Now that’s $weet!
Friday’s East Regional session in Washington that includes the St. John’s-Duke game is on track to end up as the most expensive Sweet 16 ticket on the secondary market in NCAA Tournament history.
According to the secondary ticket market platform TickPick, the average price on Tuesday for a ticket to see the session that includes St. John’s-Duke and Connecticut-Michigan State at the Capital One Arena was $601.
The previous high was last year's South Regional featuring Michigan State vs. Ole Miss and Auburn vs. Michigan at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, which averaged $548.
The lowest-priced resale ticket for the St. John’s session was $472, according to TickPick.
Kyle Zorn, TickPick’s Director of Content and a former Stony Brook University lacrosse player, said he expects the record average price to hold even up until Friday’s St. John’s-Duke tip-off at 7:10 p.m.
The UConn-Michigan State game, which is part of the same ticket, will follow.
“I think the teams made it a perfect storm,” Zorn told Newsday in a telephone interview. “This is, for the East Regional, a perfect situation as far as Duke and UConn and St. John’s. There's storylines that are attached to a lot of these teams.”
“Prices are at their peak when the excitement is at an all-time high. The way that St. John's advanced to the Sweet 16 plays a little bit of a role as far as the excitement and the buzz. But it's the teams that are playing. Duke and St. John's were in our top 5 as far as most expensive teams this regular season. So there's a ton of demand.”
But there aren’t a ton of tickets left. Zorn estimated there were 1,500 tickets for resale as of Tuesday evening, down from 1,800 on Monday. The arena has a seating capacity of just over 20,000.
“There's just not a ton of supply,” Zorn said. “The volume and the velocity of transactions that are taking place over the last 48 hours, I wouldn't expect it to drop too significantly.”
According to the online resale marketplace StubHub, which listed tickets ranging from $530-$3300 for the session, ticket-buyers in New York and New Jersey are among the top contributing states for the Regional, and Connecticut is also well-represented.
“The overall picture,” StubHub said in a statement provided to Newsday, “(is) this is one of the premium ticket events of the entire tournament on the secondary market, with a strong regional fanbase showing up in force.”
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
