Pony up big bucks. Conduct the band. The many ways to watch Duke before Coach K retires
So you want to see Duke play basketball at Cameron Indoor Stadium this season, the final one that Mike Krzyzewski will be the Blue Devils coach?
The first chances of the regular season come this week when the Blue Devils play home games Friday and Saturday.
Duke plays Army West Point, Coach K’s alma mater, on Friday night at 7 p.m. and faces in-state school Campbell at 8 p.m. on Saturday.
Tickets on secondary market sellers like VividSeats.com begin at $185 for the Army game while Stubhub.com has them for as low as $125.
Of note, VividSeats.com is a Duke partner for its secondary market ticketing while StubHub.com is one of several independent secondary market sites.
Better deals remain available to watch Duke’s first regular-season game, Tuesday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Tickets to watch a doubleheader that starts with Michigan State vs. Kansas at 7 p.m. and concludes with Duke vs. Kentucky begin at $63 on Vivid and $75 on StubHub.
According to VividSeats, the majority of the fans in the building for the doubleheader will be cheering for the Blue Devils. The company’s fan forecast shows Duke leading the way with 43%, followed by Kentucky (35%), Michigan State (12%) and Kansas (10%).
The next big neutral site game is Nov. 26 against No. 1-ranked Gonzaga at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Tickets start at $116 on Vivid and $215 on StubHub.
But, if the goal is to see a game at Duke’s famed, but small, home arena, expect to pay much, much more.
For the home game against Virginia (Feb. 7) tickets start a $1,000. For home games with Florida State (Feb. 19) start at $900 and Syracuse (Jan. 22) start at $800.
The most expensive ticket of the season will no doubt be the final home game of Krzyzewski’s Duke 42-year career when the Blue Devils play rival North Carolina in the regular-season finale March 5. A single ticket for that game is $5,000 on the secondary market, which is actually cheaper than earlier this month when it was close to $6,000.
In August, a Duke basketball experience package including four tickets to the UNC at Duke game plus hotel accommodations fetched $1 million at a charity auction benefiting the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.
If you are still reading this, perhaps you aren’t deterred just yet. In that case, here are the options to consider:
Join the Iron Dukes
Membership in Duke’s athletics booster club, the Iron Dukes, provides priority access to any tickets that become available in the 9,314-seat Cameron Indoor Stadium.
The smallest price point to join is $100. But the more you give, the higher your priority is.
The deadline to join to get access to season tickets was July 22. Just to show what we’re talking about here, the smallest membership level that would get you access to two season tickets is $8,000 for newer members or $7,000 for members who joined prior to the 2016-17 season.
For the right to buy four season tickets, the membership level starts at $20,000.
Absolutely join Duke’s wait list
Even though the deadline is passed to join and buy season tickets, a new membership will still help get access to single-game tickets through Duke’s new wait-list system.
The school announced the wait list plan on Sept. 29. Again, Iron Duke members get first priority to these tickets but if any get through that process, they will be available on a first-come, first-served basis for the general public.
Unlike secondary market websites, these tickets will be at face value, ranging from $75 for the Winston-Salem State exhibition game to $335 for the UNC game on March 6. Prices will vary depending upon the location of the seats, which range from standing room only to seats that season-ticket holders have made available.
Fans selected to purchase tickets will be notified anywhere from a month prior to the game to as late as game day.
Conduct the pep band. Seriously.
There is another (legal) way in without purchasing a ticket. Duke auctions off the opportunity to be a guest conductor for the Duke pep band during home games. The winning bidder can bring up to three guests, meaning four people get to watch the game.
The winning bid is selected three weeks prior to the game so you need to plan ahead for this one.
For example, the auction for the Nov. 12 home opener vs. Army West Point ended on Oct. 22. The next game currently available for bid is the Nov. 16 game with Gardner-Webb. Bidding starts at $1,500 and the auction runs through Tuesday at 5 p.m. The next game available is the Dec. 14 game with S.C. State.
As a note, proceeds from the auctions go to support the band program, not the athletics department.
The bidding for most ACC games start at $2,500 but there are two notable exceptions. The Virginia game on Feb. 7 starts at $3,500.
The UNC game? It starts at $25,000.
Significant drop on secondary market
OK, so if going to Cameron with a ticket purchased in advance is what you need, the secondary market is where it’s at.
VividSeats.com is Duke’s official partner for ticket resales. But other sites, such as StubHub, also offer tickets.
Sticker shock is real, although prices have dropped dramatically over the last month.
As of Nov. 8, the least expensive ticket for the UNC game is $3,500 on StubHub and $5,175 on VividSeats.com. Those are deep discounts compared to Oct. 18, when the get-in price was $5,990 on StubHub and $6,329 on Vivid.
Nonconference games are, by comparison, remain far cheaper. Tickets to the Nov. 16 Gardner-Webb game start at $173 (down from $300 on Oct. 18) on Vivid and $102 (down from $325) on StubHub.
Duke’s first home ACC game, Dec. 22 against Virginia Tech, starts at $456 (down from $591 on Oct. 18) on Vivid and $475 (down from $650) on StubHub.
This story was originally published October 19, 2021 at 10:29 AM.