UNC-Duke Ticket Broker on Tonight’s Prices: ‘I’ve Never Seen Something Like This’

As told to The Action Network's Darren Rovell.

I’ve been selling this game for a long time and I’ve never seen something like this.

For a first game of the season, when Duke plays North Carolina, it’s definitely a record price.

A get-in price of more than $3,000? A high price paid on StubHub of $9,000, including fees, for a ticket in the seventh row tonight?

Crazy.

There are a couple things you should understand about this game. When record ticket prices are set in this rivalry, it’s always going to be at Duke. Cameron Indoor has 9,300 seats, which is fewer than double the Dean Dome at UNC (21,000).

Out of those 9,300 seats, not all of them are ticketed, and less than 3% of those seats are actually going to change hands from the original owner.

I’d guess for this game, there were roughly 250 seats that were resold on the secondary market. Going into this morning, there were 33 seats still out there to be sold. That’s actually a lot when you consider the price.

Sure, there are a lot more tickets available, but we’re talking about Super Bowl get-in prices for a regular season college basketball game.

How did it get so high?

A North Carolina at Duke game, where both teams are in the top 10, usually has a $1,400 get-in. I think Zion Williamson adds another $1,000 to each ticket sold on the secondary market.

I know Cameron has half the seats of the Dean Dome, but the highest price paid on StubHub for a Duke at North Carolina seat for later this season is $2,575. The average price paid for this game on StubHub is $2,345.

This is a bucket list-type game and included in that bucket list is Cameron Indoor. The Dean Dome just doesn’t have the same allure.

That’s why the bigger names will be at this game, including, reportedly, Barack Obama. That’s why, according to the folks at the private aircraft section of the Raleigh-Durham Airport, today is among the three busiest days of the year for them and that today’s incoming traffic is three times what it is for a normal Wednesday.

Duke-North Carolina is never just any old game. And that's especially the case for this one.