Most people intuitively know that the best opportunity to find a deal on tickets is just before the game. But is that one day before the game, or one hour? And how much can you actually save?

To find out, I (along with my editor George Oliver) manually tracked the price of five UNC basketball games over time; both daily and then again at multiple intervals on the day of the game. We tracked these prices on seatgeek.com, the official ticket reseller for the university. We also tracked two categories of tickets; the cheapest overall ticket (usually meaning the upstairs corner), and the cheapest lower level ticket.

Key Takeaways:

The Six Hour Golden Window: In every tested scenario, the best ticket price was available on the day of the game, usually between six hours before the game, up until the actual tipoff. As a rule of thumb, prices generally stayed flat until about 72 hours out, and then began to slide downwards. For example, the cheapest ticket to the Wake Forest game decreased from $92 (three days before the game) to $27 at tipoff, a potential savings of 71%! However, the downward slide isn’t linear, and prices can actually spike in the last 60 minutes leading up to the game (particularly for bigger conference games). For that reason, I’d recommend checking ticket prices at regular intervals on game day, and pulling the trigger when you see a standout value.

But watch out for volatility! Ticket prices can have big swings at any time, and often for no discernable reason. The bigger games exhibited the most dramatic swings, and the lower level tickets often showed significantly more variability than the upper level tickets. While nerve wracking, that variability also presents the opportunity for even bigger savings on lower level tickets. Just look at the FSU game. Three days before the game, lower level tickets were trending around $150. Thirty minutes before tip-off, tickets hit a low of $44, but if you hesitated, those tickets rebounded to $63 just fifteen minutes later. If you held out until game time, the price crashed to $34.

How to Plan Ahead: Sometimes you just can’t wait until the last minute to get tickets. In that scenario, I’d consider buying directly from the university at goheels.com. They only sell the less desirable upper level tickets (the good tickets are snatched up by season ticket holders), however the list price is usually less than if you bought a similar ticket from the University’s official re-seller at seatgeek.com. For the FSU game, for example, GoHeels.com had the cheaper price on 27 of the 47 tracked days (57%). However, as noted above, the tipping point is typically around 72 hours before the game. On the day of the game, tickets on seatgeek.com plummeted as low as $19, less than a third of the $62 list price on goheels.com.

Other factors that warrant additional study… There wasn’t a clear trend that UNC’s wins and losses affect future ticket prices. However, preliminary results suggested that late night weekday games are more likely to generate last minute bargains. I’d further predict that ticket prices are also dependent on the weather (e.g. some fans don’t want to travel in the rain or extreme cold). I’d also be curious if the trends noted above would hold true for other sports like UNC football or the Carolina Hurricanes. If you’re interested in further exploring these areas, let me know your hypothesis… my friend Ryan L. has already offered to write a program to automatically track ticket prices.

Diving into the Data:

Ticket prices are relatively stable up until ~3 days before the game

Lower level tickets often show more volatility than upper level tickets (which can lead to even better last minute values)

If you do want to plan ahead, and are fine with upper level tickets, consider buying directly from the university at GoHeels.com. In this example from the FSU game, GoHeels.com was often cheaper, but it’s worth checking both sites.

The best time to buy is usually between 6 hours before the game up until tipoff

But watch out! Ticket prices, especially for lower level tickets, can spike in the final minutes leading up to the game (ECU, FSU, and WFU)

Do you have another hypothesis worth testing? What should I track next? Let me know!