Ticket price for women’s NCAA Final Four skyrockets to more than $2,000

The popularity of women’s college basketball pushed the resale price of NCAA Final Four tournament tickets north of $2,000 this week, according to Logitix, a technology company that analyzes prices across multiple platforms.

The college basketball tournament – ​​one of the most sought-after sporting events in the country – is coming to a close this week. On the women’s side, Iowa will face the University of Connecticut on Friday while later in the day the University of South Carolina will face the University of North Carolina.

The average price of a ticket sold for the women’s NCAA semifinals was $2,323, while the average sale price for the men’s was $1,001.21, Logitix reported Wednesday. Prices for the women’s tournament have soared amid growing demand for tickets, supported by the outstanding on-court performances of Angel Reese of Louisiana State University and Caitlin Clark of the University of Iowa.

Clark, Reese and other stars are “inspiring a new era of fandom and engagement,” said Chris Leyden, SeatGeek’s director of growth marketing. told CBS MoneyWatch this week.

The higher prices are also due in part to the more limited supply of tickets. Seating capacity at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, where both games of the women’s final will be played, is 19,423.

For comparison, the 63,400-capacity State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, where the men’s games will be played, is three times larger. The average ticket price for the men’s semifinals this year is $993.70, compared to $636.43 in 2023, Logitix said.

Meanwhile, the price of this year’s women’s Final Four games has eclipsed last year’s cost. Including data from sales made a month or more ago, the average price of women’s semifinals is $1,131.78, compared to $400.29 for the same period in 2023, the company said.

Dedicated sports fans were captivated by the women’s tournament this year, as evidenced by record viewership numbers. About 12.3 million people watched the game earlier this week between LSU and Iowa — the highest audience ever for a women’s college basketball game. The previous record was 11.8 million viewers in 1983 for the NCAA women’s championship game between the University of Southern California and Louisiana Tech.

Online sports betting platform FanDuel said the LSU-Iowa matchup was also the most wagered women’s game of all time, whether college or professional, CNBC reported.

Viewership for men’s and women’s college basketball has indeed increased in recent years, driven primarily by college-educated men watching on online streaming services. About 22% of Internet-using Americans watch NCAA basketball, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan survey. The survey also found that 7% of respondents watch women’s college basketball, a number that increased to 9% this month.

—The Associated Press contributed to this report.