Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
There aren’t many situations where the cheapest ticket to a basketball game during the regular season will set you back hundreds of dollars. However, people across the country are dropping a ton of cash to attend some fairly unremarkable contests thanks to a lucrative giveaway linked to a popular anime that’s responsible for a wild phenomenon.
College basketball teams play dozens of games each season, and the price of admission tends to be pretty reasonable.
You might have to shell out a bit more for a rivalry game or a marquee matchup between a couple of squads in the Top 25, but when you consider the get-in price for Tuesday’s contest between #5 Nebraska and #3 Michigan is only around $40, it’s still possible to watch some quality basketball without breaking the bank.
You might think a showdown between a #7 Michigan State team that’s traveling to face off against an unranked Rutgers squad the same evening would cost you even less. However, as one Reddit user brought to my attention, that is not the case, as the cheapest ticket on Tuesday afternoon was a fairly staggering $249.
There is an explanation, and it’s one of the more interesting stories I’ve come across in recent memory.
A One Piece giveaway has resulted in a massive surge in ticket prices for college basketball games that normally wouldn’t be a huge deal
If you’re a fan of manga or anime, you’re almost certainly familiar with ONE PIECE, the long-running Japanese series that first appeared in a magazine in 1997 before being adapted into an almost equally long-running television show, more than a dozen movies, and a live-action adaptation that debuted on Netflix in 2023.
Earlier this month, the franchise announced a tour it officially dubbed “ONE PIECE College Basketball: US Voyage,” which was the result of a partnership that was forged with five schools: Gonzaga, Houston, Illinois, Rutgers, and St. John’s.
The goal was to lure in fans to their men’s basketball game with the promise of exclusive giveaways, including t-shirts, posters, and a limited-edition trading card featuring ONE PIECE protagonist Monkey D. Luffy that has managed to spark a bit of a frenzy. The tour officially kicked off when Rutgers hosted Indiana on January 23rd, and eBay was quickly flooded with the cards that have mostly sold for between $400 and $500.
The tour has presented both a lucrative opportunity for attendees and people who can make slightly less by flipping tickets that are already in their possession.
For example, take a look at the ticket prices for some upcoming Illinois games and try to figure out which ones feature the ONE PIECE giveaway.
Ticket Data
If you guessed Indiana, Michigan, and Oregon, you were right (the fact that the Wolverines are currently #3 may have played a small role, but that doesn’t explain the hype for the unranked Hoosiers and Ducks).
The trend continues when you look at Houston, as the ONE PIECE promo will be active during their showdowns with Kansas State, Arizona, and Baylor.
Ticket Data
I’ll spare you the screenshots concerning the other three teams, but I can promise you it’s a similar situation.
The ONE PIECE tour will conclude when Baylor plays Houston on March 4th, and it’ll be very interesting to see if things get even more out of hand by then or if the hysteria ends up dying down.