Zion Williamson fuels Super Bowl-like ticket prices for Duke-UNC

One of the biggest games of the college basketball season goes down Wednesday night when No. 1 Duke hosts No. 8 North Carolina in the latest edition of the classic ACC rivalry. Excitement for the game has been growing over the past few days, something that’s made abundantly clear by the surging ticket prices to attend the matchup at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

The average resale price for a ticket to Wednesday’s Duke-UNC matchup is nearly $3,300, according to ticket reselling website SeatGeek.

The lowest price to get into the arena? How about $2,841 per ticket (before over $700 in fees)? SeatGeek calls this an “amazing deal” relative to other prices on the market.

There are likely a few factors fueling such high prices for Wednesday night. For one, Duke and UNC have one of the oldest rivalries in college basketball. They’re both ranked in the top 10. The venue hosting the game has less than 10,000 seats, and that’s before considering how many of them are provided to students and other people related to the school. So you’re looking at a relatively limited supply compared to NBA games with 20,000-plus seats or NFL games with 60,000-plus seats.

However, these prices are even higher than usual for Duke-UNC, and that’s likely because of Zion Williamson, the high-flying prodigy expected to go No. 1 in the upcoming NBA draft. Williamson’s highlights have become staples of “SportsCenter” and social media during his first few months at Duke. Between Williamson, R.J. Barrett, Cam Reddish, Tre Jones and Marques Bolden, the Blue Devils boast one of the most talented starting lineups in recent memory.

Four of the last nine Super Bowls had lower average ticket prices than this game. Super Bowl LIII between the Patriots and Rams topped the average at $4,656 per ticket, per USA Today.