Why the average NBA Finals ticket costs $4,000
- NBA Finals tickets are averaging $4,150, the highest since TicketIQ began tracking in 2011.
- Big cities and star players like Luka Dončić and Jayson Tatum appear to be pushing prices higher.
This year's NBA Finals has hit a perfect storm of being played in big cities with lots of star power, and getting into the games is expensive.
According to data collected by TicketIQ, an event ticket search engine, the average price for tickets on the resale market was $4,150 as of Monday, four days before Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
The average price is the most expensive ever seen for the NBA Finals since TicketIQ began tracking the data in 2011.
The size of the cities and the star power of both teams are likely factors pushing up ticket demand.
According to the US Census Bureau, Dallas is the fourth-largest metropolitan area by population, and Boston is ranked 11th.
This series also has some of the biggest names in the game, including Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving, Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown.
The prices for this year's Finals are 79% higher than the 2023 matchup between the Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat, with an average ticket price of $2,349. Miami and Denver are the ninth and 19th most populous metropolitan areas.
This year's series is 6% higher than the previous record of $3,899 seen in 2019, the last NBA Finals before the COVID-19 pandemic. That year, the average price for the series featuring the Toronto Raptors and the Golden State Warriors was $3,899.
Like this year, that series featured several of the NBA's biggest stars, including Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, and Kawhi Leonard.
The NBA Finals ranks high on sports fans' top sporting events
The NBA Finals is one of the top events on North American sports fans' bucket lists.
A survey conducted in May by Casino.org, an online guide to casinos and gambling, asked 3,000 sports fans which sporting events they would most like to see in person. The NBA Finals ranked third, behind the NFL's Super Bowl and Major League Baseball's World Series.
If you do want to go to a game in this year's NBA Finals, it is better to go earlier. As the best-of-seven series progresses, tickets for this year's series quickly get more expensive.
The average ticket price for Game 1 in Boston is $2,875, and the cheapest ticket is $900. The average price for a potential Game 7 in Boston is $5,503, and the minimum price just to get into the arena is $1,987.