Tickets to the Dec. 29 Louisville-Kentucky men's basketball game are sold out, and buyers on the secondary market will "likely pay a steep price to get in Rupp Arena," according to Fletcher Page of the Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL. Verified resale tickets to the rivalry game were "available at Ticketmaster for as much as $882 apiece for lower level seats as of Thursday afternoon." Upper-level seats were "available for as low as $147 apiece at TicketIQ." To compare, upper-level tickets for Virginia Tech-UK on Saturday "are listed at $54 each." But some factors "could keep the average ticket price from reaching the Rupp Arena record" of $899 for the Louisville-UK game in '13. Tipoff is at 1:00pm ET on a Friday to "accommodate the CBS national television broadcast." UK football will face Northwestern in the Music City Bowl later that afternoon (Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL, 12/15).
TANGLED UP IN BLUE: In Lexington, Jerry Tipton notes through seven games, UK is "on pace to have the lowest average home attendance in the 42 seasons of playing in Rupp Arena." UK has had an average home attendance of 20,497 this season, with a turnstile attendance of 15,637 through its first seven home games. Most "conspicuous by their absence have been UK students," who "haven’t come close to filling the E-Rupp-tion Zone, which seats (or stands) 650." But that is "expected to change" for Saturday's game against VT. UK Dir of Strategic Communication Guy Ramsey said that there are "significantly fewer unsold tickets" for Saturday's game. Ramsey and UK Student Body President Ben Childress "dismissed the increase in the price of a ticket (from $5 to $10) as an over-riding reason for gaping holes in the student sections." Childress "cited other more important factors." He said, "The home game schedule has been lacking a really big game so far" (LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, 12/15).
