The NCAA Men's Final Four has evolved into a huge media and fan event befitting its championship status.  The weekend features the semifinals on Saturday evening, followed by the National Championship on Monday night.  The games are historically very close, and the atmosphere of four schools thrilled to be competing for the title is hard to top.

Face value for tickets for the 2008 Final Four at the Alamodome in San Antonio are $120 and $150. Tickets are a relatively good value if you can get them from the NCAA, but that requires a little luck.

The NCAA conducts a drawing each year that requires pre-payment of up to two tickets.  Everyone who sends in a check is entered into the drawing, with the losers getting refunds and the winners getting tickets.  Everyone must pay a service fee to enter the drawing.

The drawing permits you to be entered up to ten times, provided you pay face value of each ticket up front, plus a $4 service fee.  For example, if a pair of tickets is $130, you must send a check for $1340 (ten tickets plus ten $4 service fees) to be entered ten times.  While you can still win only one pair of tickets, your odds of winning will increase with each additional entry.

Entering the lottery as many times as possible is advisable; you will need to shell out a lot of cash up front, but you'll get it all back a few months later, minus the actual ticket costs and service fees.

Approximately 10,000 tickets were made available to the public for the 2008 Final Four in San Antonio.  The lottery has already been held; applications were due in May, 2007.  Applications for the 2009 Final Four will begin to be accepted in March, 2008.

Because the Final Four is usually held in a dome, many seats that are available to the public are incredibly far away.  The NCAA and the participating schools get the best seats, leaving John Q. Public sitting in the rafters, seemingly miles from the action.  For the Final Four in Atlanta in 2002, with the court set up basically in one end zone, the NCAA sold seats in the upper deck of the opposite end zone (click here for a photo).  Keep that in mind when you enter the lottery.

If you show up without tickets, be prepared to pay a stiff price, especially if a few large state schools or schools near the site are participating.  If you're lucky, you might find a fan of a semifinal loser who will part with a title game ticket at face value.

In most cases, your best bet is to use an on-line ticket broker.  You can buy Final Four tickets here, or visit BigLeagueTix.com for Final Four tickets.