More than 26,000 people are expected at the Carrier Dome for the NCAA Tournament East Regional on Friday and Sunday.

“We’ve been getting quite a big of interest in the last week or so,” said Pete Sala, Syracuse University’s interim athletics director and managing director of the Dome.

Sala said the NCAA prohibits SU from talking about tickets sales and money and that the exact numbers always have to come from the NCAA office. The NCAA could not be reached for comment on the exact number of tickets sold or the revenue acquired through the sales.

“I can just tell you that the ticket sales are great,” Sala said.

According to the Ticket City website, currently 20 out of the 47 total seating sections are already sold out for both the North Carolina State-Louisville game on Friday at 7:37 p.m. and the Michigan State-Oklahoma game, which is scheduled to tip off at 10:07 p.m.

Approximately 540 tickets — including 28 handicapped seating tickets — are still available for purchase for both games on Friday. One ticket purchase will allow access to both games, according to the website.

The remaining ticket prices for the two NCAA Men’s East Regional games on Friday range from $50 to $710, with the average ticket price at approximately $125, according to the website.

The winners of the N.C. State-Louisville and the Michigan State-Oklahoma games will go on to play in the Elite Eight on Sunday and only 15 sections are currently sold out for the game, leaving more than 1,000 tickets left for purchase, according to the Ticket City website.

The remaining ticket prices for the Elite Eight game on Sunday range from $16 to $4,486, with the average ticket price at approximately $177, according to Ticket City.

Sala said the East Regional games will be similar to an SU men’s basketball home game.

The usual courtside seating has mostly been replaced with media seating, Sala said. However, some VIP and higher-level courtside seating has been made available for the regional games, he said.

“It’s just an honor — as a venue, this is an honor to host this event,” Sala said. “And I think what it does for the community, what it does for the university and what it does for the people that are our loyal basketball fans — I think it’s fantastic.”

“This is intense,” Sala said. “This is the big time.”

Published on March 26, 2015 at 9:00 pm

Contact Sara: smswann@syr.edu | @saramswann