2012 / 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four Tickets

With the start of the 2012 NCAA tournament right around the corner, some basketball fans wonder if they can get off work to go to the games, can they afford tickets, etc. The biggest question of all though is how do you get tickets? As Scott and I both have posted, Yum! Center tickets went on sale last fall long before we ever knew if UK would play there or not in the tournament and there were even still a few tickets left through Ticketmaster for the games last month.

While we will all watch those games at least on TV, the ones we really care about and focus on are the Final Four games. How does one go about getting tickets for the Final Four though? Of course you can hop on StubHub and find nose-bleed seats for a little over $100 but good seat prices are astronomical on there, going into the thousands. If you are a fan of a team that has a legitimate shot at going to the Final Four every year, such as UK, then you need to try to get tickets a year in advance for a chance to get the best seats for the cheapest price. That's right, if you want a shot at good seats that cost face-value for the 2013 Final Four, you need to start planning now and get ready to register to get tickets.

To get tickets for Final Four games you have to register for a lottery, much like UK students do for basketball games. An application for tickets to this years tournament had to be submitted by May 31st of last year. Going this route, you buy tickets for all three games (both Final Four matches plus championship game) and for this year's tournament they ran from $170 to $210. Fans then had to wait till August to know if they won or not and then should have received their tickets in February of this year.

What this means is, is that if you are considering going to the 2013 Final Four at the Georgia Dome you need to keep an eye on the NCAA's homepage and more specifically I'd say this page or here for an application which usually shows up in mid-March and runs through May.

Lastly, does all this mean you are out of luck for this year's Final Four? The answer is yes and no. Your chance at getting tickets at face value is over (with rare exceptions) but you can still find tickets. As I listed earlier Stubhub is one choice. Another is a ticket trading site that you are directed to when you click on 'Buy Tickets' for this year's Final Four on the NCAA website. That site can be found here. I found some tickets in 100 level sections on this site for under $400 for the championship game and under $700 for all three games.