After 42 years, 12 Final Four appearances, and five national championships, Mike Krzyzewski is finally retiring as head coach of Duke men’s basketball. His finale at Cameron Indoor Stadium — an arena in which he’s won 474 games — will fittingly be against arch rival North Carolina.
And if you want to say goodbye to a coaching legend in person, it will cost you more to get in the building than the cheapest tickets to Super Bowl 56.
The ticket prices for Krzyzewski’s farewell have risen steadily throughout the final week of the regular season. As of March 3, two days before tipoff, the cheapest available seat had climbed to $3,231 at Vivid Seats, $3,250 at StubHub, and $3,300 at SeatGeek.
That’s officially a higher get-in price than Super Bowl 56 had less than three weeks earlier. Per StubHub’s Maya Penland, the cheapest seats listed for the world championship tilt between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium bottomed out at $3,000 on February 11. That means it was easier to get into the biggest football game of the year than it is a regular season tilt between fourth-ranked Duke and a 22-8 North Carolina team not yet assured an at-large bid to the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
Of course, the Super Bowl happens every year. Coach K only coaches his final game at home, against his most bitter rival, once. Add in Cameron Indoor Stadium’s intimate confines — the venue can only reach its 9,314-person capacity thanks to a middle finger to the concept of personal space — and you’ve got a perfect storm of rising prices. Amazingly, a game that won’t affect the final ACC standings or end either team’s season is now the most exclusive ticket of the year.
