Are Old Basketball Ticket Stubs Worth Anything?

Some basketball ticket stubs are genuinely prized by collectors — and the most famous one in the sport is a lesson in why. On March 2, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in front of an announced crowd of just 4,124, with no television cameras present. Almost nobody saved a ticket. That combination — enormous moment, tiny surviving supply — is the entire logic of basketball stub collecting in one game.

The Moments That Drive Basketball Stub Value

Wilt's 100-point game

Stubs from the Hershey game are among the rarest tickets in American sports, and authentic examples draw intense collector attention when they surface. Be aware the game's fame has also attracted reproductions; provenance and expert review matter here more than almost anywhere else in the hobby.

The Jordan dates

Michael Jordan built a calendar of collectible evenings: his Bulls debut (October 26, 1984), the 63-point playoff game at Boston Garden (April 20, 1986), the 1988 All-Star Saturday in Chicago — we have handled an original ticket from that Slam Dunk Contest — and the 1998 Finals. Note that the famous "Last Shot" happened in Game 6 in Utah, not Chicago: another example of the road-building quirk that trips up sellers across sports.

Kobe, LeBron, and the modern era

Kobe Bryant's 81-point game (January 22, 2006) and his 60-point farewell (April 13, 2016) are heavily collected, as is LeBron James's NBA debut (October 29, 2003). The complication with recent decades is format: print-at-home and mobile tickets mean fewer traditional stubs exist, which cuts both ways — physical tickets from significant 2000s games can be scarcer than sellers assume.

College basketball

Final Four and championship-game tickets hold real interest, especially from upsets and dynasty years. We have written about tickets from the 2013 Final Four in Atlanta, and earlier tournaments follow the same rule: the more the game still gets replayed on television every March, the more its paper matters.

What Determines the Price

• The event first: a debut, a scoring record, a championship clincher, a farewell — the game's place in basketball memory does most of the work.
• Scarcity beats age: a 1962 stub from a half-empty arena in Hershey outranks a 1950s stub from a routine game. Attendance and survival, not the calendar, create rarity.
• Full ticket vs. stub: unused full tickets generally carry a premium; torn stubs prove attendance and remain very collectible for major games.
• Condition and legibility: the date, matchup, and venue should be readable. Basketball stubs from old arenas were often small and thin, so honest wear is expected and priced in.

Find Out What Yours Are Worth

Start with the printed facts — teams, date, arena — then ask what happened that night. Our foundation guide on whether old ticket stubs are worth anything walks through the research step by step.

Or let us do it: photograph both sides and submit them through our basketball page for a free, no-obligation offer. NBA, ABA, college — single stubs or a lifetime of season tickets, we review them all.