NCAA Receives 325,000 Ticket Requests for Final Four

More than 325,000 tickets have been requested for next year’s Final Four in Kansas City, a total 20 times greater than the number of seats in Kemper Arena, the NCAA said.

Kemper Arena, the site of the 1988 Final Four, seats about 16,000 for basketball. The bulk of tickets for the Final Four go to the competing teams and participants in the basketball coaches convention. Tickets for both sessions of the Final Four, which will be played April 2-4, cost $50.

The NCAA received more than 93,000 orders and the average order requested 3.5 tickets, the organization said. A computerized drawing will determine the applications that will be processed.

Applications were sent from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the NCAA said. A total of 192 applications were mailed from Canada, Japan, Italy and England.

Kansans placed 20% of the orders with 18,630 applications asking for 65,294 tickets, a total exceeding the record 64,959 attendance at the 1987 Final Four in New Orleans. Missourians sent in 11,398 applications for 40,392 tickets.

A total of 93,186 orders for 326,425 tickets were received.