The city purchased Final Four tickets for all 10 council members plus Mayor Ron Nirenberg. Credit: Instagram / alamodomesa
San Antonio’s long had a reputation as a place where visitors can stretch their travel dollars.

But that does’t necessarily apply to the 2025 NCAA Men’s Final Four Tournament, scheduled for this weekend in the Alamo City.

Researchers for sports media company The Action Network ran the numbers on how much college hoops fans can expect to dole out as they ring up tickets, accommodations, food and drinks for the much-anticipated showdown.

The bottom line? A pair of travelers stand to drop $7,150.30 on their good time.

  • A pair of Final Four tickets run $1,138.08 this year, while two National Championship Tickets will cost $3,581.66, according to the study. Meanwhile accommodations for the duration of the tourney will set fans back $1,993 to $2,490, depending on whether a guest is seeking out a hotel or Airbnb and whether they seek online discounts. The average is $1,922.56 for the stay.

    Combined, food and drink come with a $508 price estimate.
    To get the numbers, researchers scraped data from more than 1,500 listings for Final Four tickets. The average lodging prices were pulled from platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com, while the food and drink estimates relied on data from Numbeo, a crowdsourced cost-of-living database.

    So, if you’re frustrated by sports fans clogging downtown streets this weekend, just remember they’re pumping a lot of cash into San Antonians’ pockets.

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    This article appears in Apr 2-15, 2025.

    Sanford Nowlin is editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Current. He holds degrees from Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and his work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative...