The enthusiasm around the Women’s Final Four is at its peak.
South Carolina is trying to complete an undefeated season. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark vs. Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers in the national semifinals. There are plots galore.
If fans travel to Cleveland, they will have to pay a premium price for a ticket. The starting price for a ticket for all sessions – the semifinals on Friday and the championship on Sunday – for the Women’s Final Four was $710 as of Wednesday morning and will likely increase by Friday, according to StubHub. With service fees, the price of entry is $965. The entry price for Friday’s semifinals was $334, and the cheapest ticket for the championship game was $370 on StubHub (all before service fees).
The average ticket sales price on StubHub – including ticket sales for all sessions, semifinals and the championship – was $718 as of Wednesday morning, a sizable jump from the $479 average. last year.
Tickets for the Women’s Final Four are also more expensive than the Men’s Final Four in Glendale, Arizona. The men’s Final Four starting price for all session tickets is $608, according to StubHub, and the average ticket sale price is $702. But prices are also much higher for the men’s Final Four this year; A year ago, the average ticket sale price on StubHub was $390.
Sales of the Women’s Final Four exceeded last year’s sales by 80% on StubHub and are expected to surpass the 2023 total by the end of Wednesday.
One caveat regarding ticket prices concerns the difference in stadium capacity size between the men’s and women’s Final Four. The men’s Final Four is played at State Farm Stadium, home of the Arizona Cardinals, with a capacity of more than 70,000. The men’s national semifinal and championship games have not been played in a basketball arena since 1996.
The women’s Final Four is played at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, home of the Cleveland Cavaliers, which has a capacity of 19,432.
It’s no surprise that fewer seats mean higher prices. But ticket prices in Cleveland are outliers compared to previous women’s Final Fours. In 2019, the average ticket price for the Women’s Final Four was $104. In 2022, once the event returned to normal capacity following the COVID-19 pandemic, the average ticket price increased to $209. It jumped $270 in 2023 to $479. For the 2024 Women’s Final Four, the average ticket price increased by approximately 50% compared to last year. From 2019 to 2024, the average ticket price increased by 590.4 percent.
Clark certainly contributes to the high ticket prices. One of the biggest college basketball stars of all time, she rewrote the record books in four seasons at Iowa. Clark became NCAA women’s basketball’s all-time leading scorer and eventually eclipsed Pete Maravich’s record for most points in Division I history, men’s or women’s.
If Clark plays, it’s a draw. Of the Hawkeyes’ 32 regular season games this season, 30 were sold out or set arena attendance records for women’s basketball. In Iowa City, tickets for the Hawkeyes’ first- and second-round games sold out in 30 minutes. And fans flocked to the Albany, N.Y., area last weekend to see Clark, as well as South Carolina’s No. 1 and defending national champion LSU.
The doors won’t open here for another 30 minutes, but that didn’t stop fans from lining up outside MVP Arena for LSU-Iowa tonight. @TheAthleticWBB pic.twitter.com/S9QB0OByBq
–Ben Pickman (@benpickman) April 1, 2024
Iowa’s victory over LSU in the Elite Eight drew 12.3 million viewers on ESPN. That shattered the record for most-watched women’s college basketball game — a record previously held by last year’s national championship game between Iowa and LSU (9.9 million).
StubHub spokesperson Adam Budelli said the platform expects a strong presence of Iowa fans at the Final Four in Ohio given the school’s proximity to Cleveland (552 miles) . The number of tickets purchased on StubHub for the Women’s Final Four from Iowa fans exceeds those purchased from fans in North Carolina, Connecticut and South Carolina – where the other Final Four NC participants are from State, UConn and South Carolina – combined.
UConn’s presence in the Women’s Final Four will also impact ticket prices. The Huskies, 11-time national champions, are the benchmark for success in the sport, but are aiming for their first title since 2016.
According to Budelli, this speaks to the growth in women’s sports that StubHub has seen on its platform, since last year.
“If you look at the past year since April, in the college game, there’s so much excitement around Caitlin Clark,” Budelli said. “The Nebraska women’s volleyball team sold out a stadium for an outdoor match in the fall. It’s certainly been a perfect storm leading us to what will be a phenomenal Final Four on the women’s side.
Sales of the men’s Final Four more than doubled on StubHub compared to the same period last year, representing an increase of 144%. Sales for the 2024 men’s Final Four exceeded the total for the 2018 and 2022 Final Fours, according to StubHub. Compared to last year, the average price of an all-day Men’s Final Four ticket increased by 55.9% in 2024.
The increased interest is driven by Purdue making its first Final Four since 1980, according to Budelli. The number of tickets purchased on StubHub in Indiana exceeds those purchased from fans in North Carolina, Connecticut and Alabama combined. Schools like Purdue, NC State and Alabama — which haven’t reached the Final Four in several decades or are making their first — are contributing to rising ticket prices.
The women’s Final Four will take place Friday night with the national championship on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET. The men’s Final Four will take place Saturday night with the national championship on Monday at 9:20 p.m. ET.
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(Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)