Caitlin Clark fans can expect to pay hundreds to get in door for her run at record Thursday
Fans who want to be able to say they were in the arena when Caitlin Clark set the NCAA women’s career scoring record will be paying an unprecedented premium at this point.
Even the person responsible for the spectacle was having trouble accommodating everyone who asked her for tickets.
“I’ve had to tell a lot of people, ‘No,’ “said Clark, who still was able to take care of a large group of family and friends for Thursday night’s game between No. 4 Iowa and Michigan at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Ticket prices were trending toward being the most expensive ever for a women’s basketball game, pro or college, according to secondary market seller TickPick.
That platform’s average purchase price was $394 on Wednesday.
Face value for Iowa women’s basketball tickets is about $15 when broken out of a season-ticket package, assistant athletic director for ticket operations Jess Rickertsen said.
Clark needs eight more points to pass Kelsey Plum as the NCAA women’s career scoring leader. She’s averaging 32 points per game this season and 28.2 for her career, so it’s safe to assume Plum’s record of 3,527 points for Washington from 2013-17 will fall against the Wolverines.
“I think I’m excited,” Clark said Wednesday. “You know, it’s going to be a very special night. I’ve got a lot of family coming, and that’ll be a lot of fun, but I think my main focus is just honestly going out there and having a blast with my teammates and enjoying it.”
The Hawkeyes have sold out their home arena all season, and even on the road they’ve faced sold-out venues. Coach Lisa Bluder acknowledged the attention wears on her team.
“I think what’s made it more pressure is that every game we play in is like an NCAA Tournament,” she said. “I mean, every atmosphere is like that, the competition that we’re facing, because everybody gets up for us.
“We’re facing everybody’s best promotions, everybody’s best shot, every single night. And then you combine that with the atmospheres that we’re facing, it does feel like an NCAA Tournament and that can be taxing on you physically, mentally and emotionally.”
The record for highest resale price for a women’s basketball game entering this season was $150 for the 2022 WNBA All-Star Game, according to TickPick. Clark’s games, including Thursday’s, have exceeded that six times this season.
After Clark fell short of the scoring record in Iowa’s 82-79 loss at Nebraska on Sunday, the average for Thursday’s game swelled.
Logitix, which collects data from multiple secondary market sellers, reported the average price paid for Michigan-Iowa over the past seven days was $375. That’s up $15 from the previous week and $117 higher than the two-week period before that.
“The progressively increasing average ticket price is interesting,” Logitix spokesperson Eric Nemeth said in an email. “This is not a normal pattern unless there is building intrigue for an event.”
He noted that prices for Super Bowl tickets, for example, decrease as the day of the game gets closer.
Clark said that while she understands the significance of the record, she doesn’t feel anxiety as she goes into the game.
“It’s going to be special night,” she said.