| Final Four tickets available, but views will cut Oden down to size
Fans desperate to watch the Final Four in person, instead of in front of a TV at home or a sports bar, can snag tickets for about $300.
But they'll still be watching the action on a screen, ticket brokers say.
The least-expensive tickets are in 18 upper-level sections of the Georgia Dome that are designated as "distant view" by the NCAA.
The distance from center court to the most-distant seat is about 380 feet, said Greg Shaheen, a senior vice president with the NCAA.
That's 80 feet longer than a football field.
"Forget binoculars — you need a telescope," said Jamie Kaufman, president of Dream Seats Inc. in Grandview Heights. "Greg Oden might look like a Matchbox car to you."
A basketball court doesn't take up much space in the home stadium of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. The dome has a capacity of 71,250. The NCAA is offering about 54,000 tickets to the Final Four games, Shaheen said.
The "distant view" tickets had a face value of at least $110 and are clearly marked, he said. Ticket brokers in Atlanta and Ohio said yesterday that they were available for between $250 and $325.
That includes Saturday's Ohio State-Georgetown and Florida-UCLA games, as well as the Monday night championship game.
"You're just so far away that players are going to look like ants, basically," said Travis Jackson, marketing director at Riverfront Choice Tickets in Cincinnati.
"I guess you can say you were there," he said. "But if you're going there to actually watch the game, you're not going to see anything."
All seats, even those marked distant view, have an unobstructed view of the court, Shaheen said. There are microphones near the court to pick up the sounds and video screens for distance viewing.
"They still have a view of the court. They're still in the building," he said. "They'll be part of the event."
The NCAA is considering moving the court to the center of the stadium for future tournaments to get more people in, Shaheen said.
The lucky Ohio State season ticketholders who will get tickets through a lottery will be much closer to the action. None of the tickets allotted for Ohio State and the three other participating schools is in distant-view seating, Shaheen said.
Ohio State received 3,750 tickets, scattered through 14 sections. The tickets will cost $164, $184 or $214, said Bill Jones, assistant athletics director for ticketing.
Of course, fans intent on going to the finals couldn't count on lucking out in the lottery.
A good number of Buckeye fans were calling Atlanta ticket broker 2-Tickets.com Inc. today, said general manager Tim Crouch. He said he didn't keep track of how many packages were sold.
"The majority of the calls have been coming from the Florida and Ohio State fans," Crouch said.
He was offering distant-view seats for as low as $250.
Some local ticket brokers try to talk people out of the faraway seats. Kaufman said he steers people toward more-expensive seats or tells them to stay home.
An upper-level seat not in the distant-view zone could go for as low as $425, he said. Sections closer to the court would start at about $1,000, he said.
Kaufman said he doesn't think it's appropriate for the NCAA to sell all the seats it does.
"Come on, when is enough enough?" he said. "I wouldn't sit there in a million years myself."
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