Mr Al Young Dot Com

 I introduced Ticketreserve, a market where the sports fans can purchase options on sporting event tickets, and buy tickets at face value if their team makes it to the big game.  Its a great way, and often the only way for the average sports fan to gain access to the major sporting events at a fair price.  Not only is ticketreserve a great way to obtain hard to get sporting event tickets, I pointed out that one can also make a great deal of money trading these options on the ticketreserve market.  I offered some basic strategies to make a profit on thse markets. 

Now that its March, March Madness is upon us with the NCAA basketball tournament underway this week.  Almost every office in America has their own NCAA basketball pool, and the brackets are being filled out across the nation.  The NCAA basketball tournament is certainly one of the most popular sporting event to bet on.  Can we also make a profit trading NCAA basketball options on ticketreserve?  I’ve never traded in the NCAA basketball market on ticketreserve, but lets take a look and see if an opportunity to make money on March Madness.

On ticketreserve, there are two markets for the NCAA basketball tournament, the final four market, and the national championship market.  If you buy an option for your team in the final four maket, and your team makes it to the final four, you get to purchase tickets at face value, but not to the championship game should they make it.  If you buy an option on your team, in the national championship market, you get to purchase a ticket at face value to the national championship game only if your team advances.

Using the trading guidelines I suggested, is this a good market to trade in?  Not really.  While the NCAA basketball tournament is very popular as a betting and viewing event, it is not nearly as popular as an event for ticket demand as the Super Bowl or BCS championship bowl games.  In other words, while everyone will watch and follow the NCAA basketball tournament, it is not an event where everyone wants to attend like the Super Bowl.  This makes the trading market for the NCAA basketball tournament much less active.  I’ve been looking at the markets, and with March Madness just days away the market is very slow even for the top teams.  This would not be the case in football.

The other factor making it difficult to make a profit is the large amount of upsets in the NCAA basketball tournament.  I advised buying options on the favored team as early as possible to take advantage of a long season in football with interest and emotions growing as the season progresses.  However, in the NCAA basketball market, there is much less interest and the prices move very little.  Also, with the large amount of upsets, it is much more risky, with no clear favorites to ride.

While March Madness is a great event for the sports fan, it is not an ideal event to make money on ticketreserve.  Unless, you really want to attend the Final Four, I would pass on these markets, and concentrate on looking for opportunities in the Super Bowl market, or the BCS Championship game market.  Also, the market for BCS bowl games will debut shortly, and there may be opportunities there as well.