NCAA Tourney Ticket Value Soars

Tickets to the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament are bringing more than 20 times the face value for top seats, and ticket brokers say they will go higher yet during the remaining six weeks.

Operators like Dave Brusslan of Indianapolis, who has a national ticket brokerage as a sideline to his regular work as a computer consultant, advertises to buy tickets at substantially more than face value, mostly from those selected to buy them at $55 each through a national lottery. The tickets then are sold at higher prices.

Tickets for the three games April 1 and 3 at the Kingdome cost $55 from the NCAA, which has issued 18,000 tickets to date, mostly in the higher-level seats in the arena. Each participating school is allotted 2,675 tickets March 27, and total sales are expected to amount to 38,000 seats.

“We’re getting $900 to $1,250 for 100-level seats,” Brusslan said in a telephone interview.

He said he was asking $250 to $400 for 300-level seats and $500 to $700 for 200-level seats.

“We’re going to be paying a high premium ourselves for the tickets, and we’ve seen what it compares to around the rest of the country,” said Seattle ticket seller Tore Kragerud.

“It’s like being on the 50-yard line for the Super Bowl.”