Current:Home > reviewsBuying season tickets to go to one game? That’s the Caitlin Clark Effect-DB Wealth Institute B2 Reviews & Ratings
Buying season tickets to go to one game? That’s the Caitlin Clark Effect
lotradecoin professional trading tools View Date:2024-12-25 17:12:09
EVANSTON, Ill. − Greg Mittelman just wanted to see Caitlin Clark play. As a University of Iowa alum living in Chicago, his best chance was the NCAA runner-up Hawkeyes’ Jan. 31 game at Northwestern. He tried to snag single-game tickets. But when they sold out in October – just days after becoming available – he found another option.
“I am a season-ticket holder for Northwestern women’s basketball,” Mittelman said.
He has yet to attend a game, but the investment was more than worth it. He purchased four season tickets for $150 total. For Wednesday’s game, general-admission seats like Mittelman’s were listed at an average price of $230 on SeatGeek. Each.
“I tried to get my friends to do it, but they’re all like, ‘You’re an idiot,’” Mittelman said. “But I think I’m the smart guy now.”
He’s not alone. Despite coming off a 9-21 campaign in 2022-23, Northwestern sold the most season tickets in program history this year.
The Wildcats have the lowest home-attendance average in the Big Ten, at 1,670 per game. On Jan. 25 vs. Penn State, Northwestern's last home game before Iowa, the crowd consisted of a smattering of fans in the lower bowl with the upper sections completely empty.
But for one night, all of Welsh-Ryan Arena’s 7,039 seats will be filled with fans eager to witness the biggest star in women’s college basketball. It will be the first sellout in Northwestern women’s basketball history.
“(Clark is) a great player, great kid, really good for our game,” said Northwestern coach Joe McKeown. “It’s just an opportunity to showcase women’s basketball, and we’re excited about that.
“The bittersweet part is that you wish it were like that all the time.”
CAITLIN CLARK POINTS TRACKER:Iowa star scores 38 in win over Nebraska
Northwestern is just the latest Big Ten campus transformed by the “Caitlin Clark Effect.” All six of the Hawkeyes’ true road games have been sellouts – with opposing arenas seeing their attendance increase by an average of about 150%. The cheapest tickets on the secondary market for Wednesday's game will cost nearly $200. For the Wildcats’ four other remaining home games, the lowest available price is $1.25 on average.
“The spotlight she’s put on the sport is amazing,” said Northwestern’s senior captain, Jasmine McWilliams.
In Iowa’s most recent road game, a 100-92 overtime loss at Ohio State, the frenzy grew to unprecedented heights. A program-record 18,660 fans packed Value City Arena, the largest indoor women’s basketball crowd in the country this season (Ohio State has averaged 5,668 fans for its other home games this year). What happened after the game – when a court-storming fan knocked Clark to the ground – stole the spotlight from an otherwise sterling moment for women’s basketball.
“That crowd, I would say, is probably the first hostile crowd Iowa played in front of,” said color commentator Meghan McKeown, who called the game for NBC.
The Northwestern-Iowa game is not likely to be so thrilling – or hostile. The Hawkeyes sit atop the Big Ten standings. The Wildcats are second-to-last. Yet that won’t stop the pregame ticket prices and in-game environment from reaching a fever pitch.
“It’ll be kind of like a home crowd for Iowa,” said Patience Vanderbush, a Northwestern women’s basketball alum. “But it’s wonderful for women’s basketball because that’s happening everywhere.”
Vanderbush and her spouse, Rosalie Dominik – also a former Northwestern women’s basketball player – bought season tickets despite living thousands of miles away in North Carolina.
“We had in mind that we wanted to see Caitlin Clark play basketball,” Vanderbush said.
They bought season tickets along the sideline for $99 each. Seats in their section for Wednesday’s game are listed for a minimum of $600 on the secondary market, with some sellers asking for more than $2,000.
“I would say we might continue buying season tickets now even though we can’t make it very often,” Dominik said.
Mittelman’s season tickets cost about $2 per game each. He could potentially sell them for more than a hundred times that. But he won’t be joining the scalpers.
“For me as an Iowa fan, this is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing,” Mittelman said.
He is bringing his 3-year-old daughter Sunny to the game and said she’ll wear headphones to protect against the thunderous roars accompanying each Clark 3-pointer. Though she won’t be able to appreciate it now, Mittelman said, he knows what it will mean to her for the rest of her life.
“I'm able to say I saw (Michael Jordan) play live,” Mittelman said. “She'll say she got to see Caitlin Clark play live.”
veryGood! (98832)
Related
- TikToker Nicole Renard Warren Claps Back Over Viral Firework Display at Baby’s Sex Reveal
- Mining company employee killed in western Pennsylvania mine accident
- 11-year-old accused of shooting, injuring 2 teens at football practice is denied home detention
- Democrats evicted from hideaway offices after Kevin McCarthy's ouster
- Usher concert postponed hours before tour opener in Atlanta
- Adnan Syed goes before Maryland Supreme Court facing ‘specter of reincarceration,’ his lawyers say
- Victoria Beckham Shares Why She Was “Pissed Off” With David Beckham Over Son Cruz’s Birth
- Morgan State University mass shooting: 5 shot on campus, search for suspect ongoing
- How 'Millionaire' host Jimmy Kimmel helped Team Barinholtz win stunning top prize
- 12-year-old boy dies after bicycle crash at skate park in North Dakota, police say
Ranking
- Streamer stayed awake for 12 days straight to break a world record that doesn't exist
- 'Surprise encounter': Hunter shoots, kills grizzly bear in self-defense in Idaho
- Maren Morris Reveals the Real Reason She Left Country Music
- Seattle to pay $1.86 million after man dies of a heart attack at address wrongly put on 911 blacklist
- Bristol Palin Shares 15-Year-Old Son Tripp Has Moved Back to Alaska
- Ciara Shares Pivotal Moment of Ending Relationship With Ex Future
- 'Why they brought me here': Twins' Carlos Correa ready for his Astros homecoming in ALDS
- Pakistani army says 2 people were killed when a Taliban guard opened fire at a border crossing
Recommendation
-
NASA Shares Update on Astronauts Stuck Indefinitely in Space
-
Pope Francis: ‘Irresponsible’ Western Lifestyles Push the World to ‘the Breaking Point’ on Climate
-
Pope Francis: ‘Irresponsible’ Western Lifestyles Push the World to ‘the Breaking Point’ on Climate
-
Content moderation team cuts at X, formerly known as Twitter : 5 Things podcast
-
Family of man killed by Connecticut police officer files lawsuit, seeks federal probe of department
-
Horoscopes Today, October 4, 2023
-
Japan hopes to resolve China’s seafood ban over Fukushima’s wastewater release within WTO’s scope
-
Brian Austin Green was bedridden for months with stroke-like symptoms: 'I couldn't speak'