With March Madness getting underway this week, some college basketball fans from the D.C. region may want to travel to see their favorite teams compete in person.
If you are among those more passionate fans, you should be prepared for a potentially pricey trip.
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According to StubHub, tickets range from $92 all the way to $1,300 for the University of Maryland’s game against West Virginia on Thursday in Birmingham, Alabama.
Round-trip flights from the D.C. area to Birmingham are relatively expensive, costing nearly $800 for a nonstop flight and $500 for one stop.
Howard University is playing Kansas on Thursday in Des Moines-Iowa, and flying there is exceptionally pricey.
A round-trip flight from the D.C. area to Des Moines is a whopping $2,400 nonstop, while it would be about $900 with one stop. Game tickets for Howard range from $58 to $720.
The cheapest game to fly to is the University of Virginia’s game against Furman on Thursday in Orlando, Florida.
Flying to Orlando from the D.C. region is downright cheap, costing less than $300 for a round-trip ticket.
Game tickets for the University of Virginia range from $29 to about $1,300.
Virginia Commonwealth University is also playing in the tournament, with the team’s first game happening Friday against Saint Mary’s in Albany, New York.
Tickets for that game range from $113 to $1,287.
Flying to Albany from the D.C. area round-trip will cost about $500.
A two-night stay in a three-star hotel in any of those cities will set you back roughly $300 or so, according to Expedia.
The tournament begins Tuesday with two First Four games. The full madness starts Thursday with 16 first-round games, then 16 more the next day.
The top overall seed, Alabama, has been on a roll despite being entangled in a murder case. Another No. 1 seed, defending national champion Kansas, is coming off a blowout loss and has a coach coming out of the hospital.
Yet another, Houston, just watched its best player go down in a heap with a scary injury.
This year’s March Madness front-runners are anything but perfect, but the presence of these teams and all their questions at the top of the bracket could make for precisely what the NCAA wants its tournament to be — a perfectly unpredictable mess.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
