Stony Brook-Kentucky March Madness tickets not easy to come by
Stony Brook basketball fans interested in traveling to Des Moines for Thursday night’s NCAA Tournament game against Kentucky face two major challenges.
The first is that Des Moines is more than 1,000 miles from Stony Brook. The second is that tickets for that location on the secondary market are more expensive than any other first- and second-round site.
Blame the fact that the Seawolves are facing Kentucky, whose large and avid fan base is famously willing to travel to see its team play. (Des Moines is about 650 miles from Lexington.)
According to TiqIQ.com, which monitors the resale market, the average asking price for an all-sessions ticket to the games in Des Moines was $1,249.85 as of Tuesday morning, with a low of $718 — and with very limited supply.
The average asking price only for the evening session Thursday was $243.55, with a low of $168.
Several other teams with large, travel-friendly followings also are slated for Des Moines, including Kansas, Indiana and Connecticut.
Meanwhile, for metropolitan-area fans who want to see NCAA games in person without traveling, an all-sessions ticket to the games at Barclays Center was averaging $742.01, with a low of $198.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
