If Alabama basketball makes a Final Four run, here's the cost of traveling along
So you think this Alabama basketball team has a national championship in its near future, and you want to follow it all the way there?
Let's see how the wallet feels about it.
An online bundle purchase of a flight from Birmingham to Louisville, plus a rental car and a three-night hotel stay, which will be necessary if Alabama wins Friday to advance to the South Region final on Sunday, is running about $750 per person at the cheapest. Considering the way hotel prices can spike around big events like the NCAA Tournament, that's not bad.
But wait − don't forget those pesky tickets.
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That cost, of course, varies wildly depending on where you want to sit in the KFC Yum Center for the Crimson Tide's showdown against No. 5-seeded San Diego State on Friday. For this exercise, in alignment with the cheaper hotel prices cited above, we'll hold costs down again and presume you'll take a nosebleed seat. Secondary-market sites are selling upper deck seats at roughly $50-$100 each, and about the same for Sunday action if Alabama is facing the Creighton-Princeton winner.
That puts the total cost for a run to Louisville around $900-$1,000 per person on the low end. Call it $2,000 for two, not counting food. And if you decide to splurge on a good meal, hit Pat's Steak House on Brownsboro Road.
But you can't stop there, right?
If the Crimson Tide makes the first Final Four appearance in program history in Houston, watching on TV will be a letdown after making the trip to Louisville. Believe it or not, bundle pricing on a run to H-town for a flight from Birmingham plus a rental car and three nights in a less expensive hotel is about the same as a trip to Louisville − around $750 per person.
Final Four tickets? Well, that's not the same at all.
Some of the worst seats in the building − the Final Four will be played at NRG Stadium − are going for $500 apiece or more. That puts the cost of the Houston trip by itself around $1,250 per person. Total cost for two people to trail the Crimson Tide from Louisville all the way to Houston for a national championship game?
Around $4,500, plus meals, parking, and whatever else comes out of pocket.
A lot more than one can find under a couch cushion, to be sure. But if you've ever tripped to Atlanta and a couple of CFP games to follow an Alabama football postseason, you won't find this expensive at all by comparison.
Reach Chase Goodbread at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama basketball tickets: Sweet 16, Final Four travel cost for fans
