College athletics may not be recession-proof as an instution, but tickets to the big game still fetch a whole lot of cash.

Individual seats at No. 6 Duke's 9 p.m. Wednesday matchup against No. 3 North Carolina were being auctioned for as little as $500 and as much as $1,395 on StubHub and eBay late Tuesday nigh, less than 24 hours before the big game's tip. The best seats we could find are in Row J of Section 7, which corresponds to halfway up the section in the upper bowl directly between Duke and North Carolina's bench.

But that's still a better deal than the $4,000 a person with the handle C3DUKIE paid for two tickets on's official auction for tickets in the third row at center court. In 2006, the same seats sold for more than $8,000, the Herald-Sun reported last week.

Of course, 40 minutes worth of good conversation from a college student is worth all the money in the world. Right?