Interestingly, tickets for tonight's NCAA at MSG are the hottest ever in the history of the NCAA thanks to UConn playing.
There's a Marquette mention as the previous "hot ticket" included Marquette (along with some bluebloods) as well as a mention on dueling Big East & ACC tourneys in NYC in 2017.
Since the conference re-shuffling seems to involve who can get "a foothold in NYC", the Hartford Courant is spinning UConn.
http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-mens-basketball/hc-jacobs-column-0328-20140327,0,149278.columnAnybody Notice What College Team Has Foothold In New York? Jeff Jacobs
10:31 a.m. EDT, March 28, 2014
NEW YORK — Each has a story to tell and all of them paid a lot of dollars to tell it. Yet in the end, the message that their passion sends is the same:
Hey, John Swofford! Hey Jim Delany! Hey, ACC, Big Ten and the other power brokers in college sports. Open your eyes. See how much clout UConn has in New York.
Tom Marston of Higganum paid $745 for two tickets in Section 419 for UConn's Sweet 16 game Friday night against Iowa State at Madison Square Garden. Marat, from New York and originally from West Hartford, paid $500 for his ticket and the right to have his last name withheld.
Zack Etter, UConn senior from Stonington, paid $350 to a fellow student who won the school ticket lottery and had paid $150 for it. Brian Petow, originally from Manchester and now living Medford, Mass., sold his Springsteen tickets at Mohegan Sun Arena to get three seats together for $399 each.
And Matt Lutheran of Hamden? Well, he ended up with more money, but thanks to the shenanigans of a ticket agency he did not get a ticket.
After UConn eliminated Villanova in Buffalo, N.Y., early Sunday, it took just a few hours for the ticket prices for the first NCAA regional in 53 years at Madison Square Garden to skyrocket. By Wednesday, ESPN was quoting ticket aggregator TiqIQ that the average price for a full strip of three games was $1,483. The previous regional high was $905 for the 2011 regional in Newark, N.J. that featured Kentucky, Ohio State, North Carolina and Marquette.
Also citing TiqIQ, Forbes reported that with an average price of $747 on the secondary market, the MSG prices were running 23 percent higher than even the Final Four.
By any standard, the numbers blow any recent regional prices out of the water.
There is an unmistakable poetry in UConn's returning to MSG one year after the school was rebuffed by the Big East in its attempt to take part in the final tournament before the schools broke apart. After the NCAA levied its sanctions against UConn for poor academic performance, the school asked its Big East brothers to factor in newer APR numbers that showed UConn had turned its academic ship completely around. Forget it, UConn was told.
"I know we came down here and played in the 2K Classic and won it [in November]," UConn coach Kevin Ollie said Thursday. "But to come down here this time of year and our guys not able to play in the last Big East tournament, it's full circle.
"I told the guys, this is expensive. We paid a lot to get here … It's the dedication, the hard work that they did to get our school through the down times when everybody was saying the school and the program was not going to make it. Those kids dug their heels in and said, 'Yeah, we are going to make it.' "
In 2017 and 2018, two high-profile conference tournaments will be held in New York, the ACC at Barclays Center and the revamped Big East at MSG. The UConn banner, one that has flown over three national championships since 1999, will play at neither. This is an outrage. What kind of governing body would allow the national conference landscape and the regional basketball landscape to deteriorate to the point where the most powerful regional influence is X'd out of New York?
With UConn's basketball pedigree and a commitment to football barely shy of Rutgers, it is ludicrous to believe Rutgers, headed for the Big Ten, speaks for the overall New York collegiate market. With the borders of UConn's influence nearly scraping the Empire State Building, New York will feel that influence Friday as a sea of national flag blue arrives on a special Metro-North train from New Haven and via other means.
"I've told my colleagues across the country that UConn and New York go together," UConn athletic director Warde Manuel said. "We have a strong fan base and it's one of the strongest fan bases in the country when UConn comes to New York. With the way our fans soaked up our 1,250 tickets and the demand that's out there by our fans it shows a lot about the passion for UConn."
Shabazz Napier couldn't stop talking about the lift the fans give the team at home games, how with so many arriving in New York they will bring great energy and how no player could be tired after such a lift.
"I think I heard the tickets were going for like $200," DeAndre Daniels told Tim Fontenault of the UConn Daily Campus. "It's going to be a great atmosphere. It's going to be crazy. It's going to get us even more pumped up to see all the UConn people here."
Folks only wished they could get a ticket for $200, DeAndre.
Petow paid $399 Monday, $100 more than he saw available on Sunday, but considerably less than Tuesday.
"I heard on WFAN that is the hottest sports ticket in N.Y. in a long time," Petow said. "Hopefully that catches the ears of a bigger basketball conference that wants to gain in the New York and New England markets. I find it funny that the conferences are looking at football money. Comparing this to empty Rentschler Field is kind of silly to me. I think it's only a matter of a year or two before the ACC opens its door to UConn, after showing they are a national basketball power regardless of conference."
"I really hope the ADs from these other power conferences take notice that UConn has a strong hold of the New York market," Marat, 41, said. "With the proximity it just makes sense for these conferences to strongly look into bringing UConn aboard. Staying in the AAC is not in the best interests of UConn basketball."
Lutheran had a cautionary tale. He said South Windsor-based TicketNetwork matched him and Dan Navarette of Middletown with Prominent Tickets to guarantee four tickets in a certain zone at $160 each. On Wednesday, however, he was told by Prominent that had oversold the event and his purchase couldn't be filled. TicketNetwork told him there was nothing it could do. Prominent did refund him at 200 percent the purchase price, but by that time the prices had skyrocketed at a much bigger percentage. Lutheran provided a screenshot from Prominent showing tickets available listed in his zone for $800 each.
"As far as UConn fans sending a message to the ACC and Big Ten, I'm not convinced it will," said Marston, who wants to see if the American can grow. "UConn has always traveled well to NYC and the Garden but for other venues, not so much, especially in football. Men's and women's basketball no longer sell out every game like they did 10 years ago. Football attendance is down. The practice facilities are fine but Gampel needs to be spruced up and the XL Center needs a major overhaul. No one event, no matter how impressive, will make up for all these other issues."
Maybe not, but one shining moment is UConn's best argument on this Friday night in March.
"The greatest arena alive for basketball, the Mecca of basketball, it's just a great place to play," Ollie said. "It's just a train ride away from Connecticut. I know there's going to be a lot of people here cheering for us.
"If it wasn't Shabazz and our seniors taking on that pressure of saying, 'OK, I'm not going to leave. I know Coach [Calhoun] is retiring, I know we're going to a new conference, but UConn is still on our chest and we're going to keep believing.' "
That belief will be heard Friday night in a place where a 1988 NIT title kick-started UConn basketball, in a place where Ray Allen beat Georgetown for the Big East title in 1996, where UConn battled Syracuse to six overtimes, where Kemba Walker took that unforgettable step back.
Listen up, Mr. Swofford. Listen up, Mr. Delany. Listen up the lords of 21st century college athletics. There will be a noise in the big city Friday night and you should know who is making it.
Copyright © 2014, The Hartford Courant
