Some NCAA Tournament ticket prices plunge in Salt Lake City

SALT LAKE CITY – Despite the presence of top-seeded Gonzaga, and the city’s well-known affinity for basketball, the market for tickets to get into this week’s NCAA Tournament games in Salt Lake city is more bust than boom when it comes to the cheap seats.

The cheapest tickets on the secondary market can currently be had for about $40, which is a 20-percent drop from their face-value price. Granted, that’s downright expensive compared to Tulsa, where tickets to the games can be had for just $17 according to TicketIQ, which tracks the secondary market.

However, lower bowl tickets are proving to be a much pricier proposition, particularly when the Zags are playing. Few lower bowl seats are available for Thursday’s morning session, which includes GU’s game against No. 16 seed South Dakota State and No. 8 Northwestern’s matchup with No. 9 Vanderbilt. The cheapest lower bowl morning session ticket is $227 as of Wednesday morning.

Tickets in the same are $133 for the afternoon session, which includes No. 2 seed Arizon’s game against No. 15 North Dakota, and No. 7 seed Saint Mary’s vs. No. 10 VCU.

The average price for all tickets throughout the NCAA Tournament is $363.

Basketball tickets are not usually so hard to move in Salt Lake City. The University of Utah Utes ranked No. 2 in the Pac-12 this past season in average home attendance, and the Utah Jazz have ranked in the NBA’s top-ten for attendance in each of the past two seasons.