Zion Williamson
AP Photo/Gerry Broome

College Basketball’s Greatest Rivalry Now Costs a Small Fortune to Attend

Once upon a time, getting tickets to see a big game wasn't looked at as impossible. Sure, it would cost some money, but it wasn't so outrageous that you would have to drain a portion of your bank account for a couple of hours of memories. The times have certainly changed, and not exactly for the better.

These days, finding reasonably priced tickets to a major sporting event has become somewhat of a circus. Attending Super Bowl LIII would have forced many to empty their bank accounts, and now college basketball's greatest rivalry is costing anyone who wants inside the arena a small fortune.

As the No. 1 Duke Blue Devils host the No. 8 North Carolina Tar Heels at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Wednesday night in a pivotal ACC clash, tickets to get in have spiked to an unworldly level.

There's no doubt a ticket to Cameron for this Tobacco Road rivalry is tough, especially with the small 9,314 seating capacity, but what if someone told you that you would need to spend over $3,000 just to get in the door? That's the cheapest ticket right now for the game in Durham, North Carolina.

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Whether you use SeatGeek, StubHub, Vivid Seats, or any other marketplace, it doesn't matter. The price tag is absurd everywhere you look and can get as high as $5,000 in some sections.

People are charging Super Bowl prices to see a regular season college basketball game. Think about how crazy that is for a second. This isn't the NCAA Tournament or even the ACC Tournament. Yet, the ticket prices have skyrocketed a few thousand notches over face value.

Both these teams are legit. Duke basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski has a loaded squad full of future NBA lottery picks such as Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, and Cam Reddish, while UNC head coach Roy Williams has a more experienced team built to contend for a league title.

It should be a crazy battle, but come on. There's no way these basketball tickets should cost this much. Even the prices for the rematch slated for next month at the nearly 20,000-seat Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill are going for over $1,000.

Ticket sellers must be living the good life right now, and understandably so. Even if they don't ever make it into the game, they are making a nice living by selling these tickets at a price only fans in a different tax bracket can afford.

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