Suggestions for buying NCAA tournament tickets

[purplejustice]

Since we are in uncharted territory can anyone share ideas on the best way to buy NCAA first round tickets without getting ripped off. Where? NCAA site? Stubhub etc.? When ? Sunday? Or wait till closer to game date. Thanks,

Go Cats!

 

[hdhntr1]

Since we are in uncharted territory can anyone share ideas on the best way to buy NCAA first round tickets without getting ripped off. Where? NCAA site? Stubhub etc.? When ? Sunday? Or wait till closer to game date. Thanks,

Go Cats!

Probably helps to know where we are going.

 

[Sec.112]

The best seats go to the schools. They usually have turn-it-around-quickly sale. I'd be suprised if NU used its complete allotment.

Also, keep your eyes open out here. Except for Indy, I doubt I can attend. I have plenty of Wildcat Fund points and I'd be happy to help a good board member get tix.

 

[FloridAlum]

The best seats go to the schools. They usually have turn-it-around-quickly sale. I'd be suprised if NU used its complete allotment.

Also, keep your eyes open out here. Except for Indy, I doubt I can attend. I have plenty of Wildcat Fund points and I'd be happy to help a good board member get tix.

Not sure if you know but purple justice and his wing man J have been season ticket holder's for a long long time, plus a lot of us on the board know him . Plus one day he might be able to save your ass if you get in the legal trouble, just a thought

 

[cats1967]

Per my ticket guy last week, the school allocation is only around 400 tickets. Enough for families and trustees basically. It did not sound as if there would be any sale through the box office so we are on our own.

 

[winnetkat]

Per my ticket guy last week, the school allocation is only around 400 tickets. Enough for families and trustees basically. It did not sound as if there would be any sale through the box office so we are on our own.

This (see ticket office's response to my inquiry below). But Northwestern will have tickets when we get to the Sweet 16!

Unfortunately, we as a school are not given enough tickets to put any on sale for our season ticket holders or the general public. After taking care of our players, staff, administration, and trustees [and I assume the very biggest donors, beyond my relatively modest contributions], we barely have any left. However, if we advance past the first two rounds, we should have enough to put some up for sale for our season ticket holders. When the bracket is announced, I would recommend reaching out to the venue at which we are playing for tickets. They will have some available!

 

[cats1967]

Back to the original question, does anyone have experience with buying 1st/2nd round tickets? Whether on the NCAA site or Stubhub, is it better to buy the first game and pick up the second when we win or buy the strip and sell if we lose? Also, it appears that there are only physical tickets. Everything I have seen includes FedEx. Have not seen an email option.

 

[Sec.112]

Well, that's crap. I'm not saying it's inaccurate.

I've had personal experience at two different schools and there were always a reasonable (if not plentiful) number of tickets for STHs and students ... at least.

Especially considering NU has no clue where it's playing, this smells like an NU thing. That's too bad.

 

[CMcCat]

Back to the original question, does anyone have experience with buying 1st/2nd round tickets? Whether on the NCAA site or Stubhub, is it better to buy the first game and pick up the second when we win or buy the strip and sell if we lose? Also, it appears that there are only physical tickets. Everything I have seen includes FedEx. Have not seen an email option.

The guidance I have received is that it is not difficult to pick up tickets for round 1 (though pending our location demand for our unique session obviously could be off the charts). I was told to pick up cheapest tix on stubhub or literally outside stadium and, if we are not the first game, there will be ample opportunity to relocate to better seats as losing team fans of earlier games vacate. This from a trusted ND alum who has done this before.
I just remember freaking out about getting 1996 Rose Bowl tickets and then finding myself trying to sell extras minutes before kickoff. Admittedly, wherever we play will have fewer seats than the Rose Bowl...
If we are in Milwaukee, Indy or Buffalo, I will happily accept assistance obtaining tickets from any kind sponsor.

 

[SimpsonElmwood]

Back to the original question, does anyone have experience with buying 1st/2nd round tickets? Whether on the NCAA site or Stubhub, is it better to buy the first game and pick up the second when we win or buy the strip and sell if we lose? Also, it appears that there are only physical tickets. Everything I have seen includes FedEx. Have not seen an email option.

This is a tough one. I would prefer to buy individual tickets myself, but I have not seen a listing of game times by seeded matchup by venue. Has anyone seen something like this? Will the game we want be in the day doubleheader or the night doubleheader?

 

[SimpsonElmwood]

The guidance I have received is that it is not difficult to pick up tickets for round 1 (though pending our location demand for our unique session obviously could be off the charts). I was told to pick up cheapest tix on stubhub or literally outside stadium and, if we are not the first game, there will be ample opportunity to relocate to better seats as losing team fans of earlier games vacate. This from a trusted ND alum who has done this before.
I just remember freaking out about getting 1996 Rose Bowl tickets and then finding myself trying to sell extras minutes before kickoff. Admittedly, wherever we play will have fewer seats than the Rose Bowl...
If we are in Milwaukee, Indy or Buffalo, I will happily accept assistance obtaining tickets from any kind sponsor.

The Rose Bowl ticket allocation was a fiasco. I gave $100 to the Wildcat Fund for the first time in my life that year and I jumped in front of everyone who gave to the regular NU fund. That started the Purple Points system that we all know and love.

 

[ricko654321]

The guidance I have received is that it is not difficult to pick up tickets for round 1 (though pending our location demand for our unique session obviously could be off the charts). I was told to pick up cheapest tix on stubhub or literally outside stadium and, if we are not the first game, there will be ample opportunity to relocate to better seats as losing team fans of earlier games vacate. This from a trusted ND alum who has done this before.
I just remember freaking out about getting 1996 Rose Bowl tickets and then finding myself trying to sell extras minutes before kickoff. Admittedly, wherever we play will have fewer seats than the Rose Bowl...
If we are in Milwaukee, Indy or Buffalo, I will happily accept assistance obtaining tickets from any kind sponsor.

I spoke with Ticket office and got the same story as above. They made it sound more like that it depends on venue - i.e. they only know for sure that they are getting 400 (allocated for players family and Pat Ryan donors), could possibly get more but it depends where we go, they'll tell us if so after we know location. I've been glancing around on Stubhub some, more of the first round tickets at the 5 locations are going for $45-85 for a 2 game session (they split it half and half). Greenville was an outlier a bit higher than that.

From a ticket price in secondary market perspective, I think Greenville or Indy might be most expensive of the 5 likely destinations - the former bc UNC fans will travel en masse, the latter cause NU fans will, alongside Kentucky and or Louisville. And Tulsa for Kansas to a somewhat lesser extent. SLC will prob be a pretty easy ticket. Keep in mind though that most of these are NBA size stadiums - 15-20k. Tickets will be more expensive than a normal game at W-R, but the primary expense of it all will still be the plane fare to wherever it is...

 

[D_C_B]

Scalp 5 minutes after game time. It's simple supply and demand. The scampers will make so much money robbing fans of the other teams, they'll give away the NU tickets just to not get arrested with $10k-$20k in their pocket.

 

[nucatnap]

My friends and I gone to a first round site every since 1997. After years of hearing the Ticket Hawks sell tickets for less than we purchased our tickets for we stopped buying beforehand. We have always been able to find tickets on the street for face value or less with the exception of Louisville a few years ago when Kentucky was there. Right now none of the first round sites are sold out.

You can purchase an All session pass through the NCAA. This would be a total of 6 games divided into 3 sessions. You would actually receive 3 separate tickets. This is a lot of basketball. Session 1 would be 2 day games, Session 2 would be 2 evening games and session 3 would be the winners of both sessions 2 days later.

If you go the Stubhub route you can tell quickly by watching the ticket sales. ALWAYS check the NCAA site to see if they have tickets available or if the venue sold out. If they have not sold out you can wait out the StubHub sellers. If they are sold out you may want to purchase a little quicker.

If the venue has not sold out yet the day of the games then you take your chances and buy on the street. This is the way I buy mine. At Orlando a few years ago I bought good seats for 10 dollars.

Another trick, if you buy the first session only (Thursday or Friday) and NU wins there are going to be a lot of fans who went to see a team that lost. Many of these may have tickets for Saturday (or Sunday) and are now miserable. This is a good time to just yell out "looking for some tickets for Saturday" You may be able to score some tickets cheap through the sorrow of others.