Michigan State Fans Being Forced to Buy Lodging With Final Four Tickets

When the Michigan State Spartans clinched a Final Four berth -- the fifth in the already-storied career of Tom Izzo -- it was a source of joy in the state most drearily affected by the state of our nation's economy. What was once a sunny day in the midst of a gloomy month now has a large black cloud, because the Michigan State fans are being price-gouged by the NCAA and/or the University -- depending on your point of view.

The basic gist of the situation is that the NCAA provides each of the four Final Four schools with 500 hotel rooms in the Detroit area, but it requires the schools to pay for them. Michigan State, in turn, is automatically charging people for a room when they buy a set of tickets.

Now, it wouldn't seem so unreasonable for North Carolina, Villanova, or Connecticut fans, because they need to stay somewhere if they want to go to the Motor City. Michigan State, however, is only an hour and a half away. Plus, many MSU fans live in Detroit. Simply put, most MSU fans were probably just going to drive the game and back home.

Instead, they'll be saddled with $175 hotel rooms for four days -- which could possibly be farther away from the game than their actual residence. If you don't want the hotel room, you'll be paying a $50 surcharge per ticket. I guess it would have been too much work for the NCAA to judge each school on an individual basis or let the schools decide on their own. It's not like the Final Four is going to be hurting for patrons.

To be clear about this, Michigan State could just eat the money and allow fans to buy tickets from them without the hotel rooms. They could also offer the hotel room package to those who might want to stick around or alumni who live farther away. In this sense, you could argue the university shoulders some of the blame. In doing so, however, you'd be ignoring that this public institution has been saddled with $300,000 worth of hotel rooms by the NCAA -- in a state with a 12 percent unemployment rate, which is the highest in the nation.

It should be noted that fans can buy tickets through other avenues, though through your own school is easily the cheapest way to do so -- and that's with the tickets ranging from $250-$350.

This situation is one that could cause the Spartans to lose what was perceived to be a home-court advantage in the Final Four. If you want to watch them play, you've either got to be doing pretty well financially or really love Sparty.