Two hours before the NCAA men's basketball tournament doubleheader tipped off Saturday inside Consol Energy Center, fans were lining up to buy merchandise from the vendors.
If you wanted a game program as a souvenir, you had to fork over $15 for the official NCAA Pittsburgh subregional program.
If you wanted a T-shirt with your school's name and emblem emblazoned on the front of it for a friend or family member, you had to shell out $25.
Even T-shirts for Texas, LSU, Northeastern and Lafayette, the teams that lost Thursday, remained $25. There was no discounted NCAA merchandise available.
A vendor said the merchandise that went unsold in Pittsburgh this week will be shipped back to the schools.
Butler Bulldogs fan John Green of Alliance, Ohio, shelled out $30 for two game programs when he entered the arena. His son paid $229 for tickets on stubhub.com that had a face value of $88.
"Personally, I feel like the athletes should get some of the money," Green said.
Green wasn't the only one to pay the exorbitant prices. Thursday, a vendor outside the Pens Gear store sold 242 of the 540 programs she was given. She was trying to sell the remainder Saturday.
The NCAA also does not like competition. The Pens Gear store was not allowed to be open Thursday or Saturday. The gates to the store were closed, and the NCAA merchandise was the only thing that could be sold on the premises.
Black curtains covered up the advertising the Penguins sell throughout the arena, as well. Only NCAA sponsors were allowed inside the arena while the NCAA staged its games.
Bar scene
The NCAA and its schools weren't the only entities raking in the money this weekend.
The late tip times for the games were a boon for the restaurants and bars near Consol Energy Center. At 4 p.m., some three hours before Villanova and North Carolina State tipped off, Wildcats and Wolfpack fans, plus Notre Dame and Butler fans wore their colors and tipped their glasses across the street at Blue Line Grille on Fifth Avenue.
Blue Bulldogs T-shirts and sweatshirts sat next to green-clad fans of the Fighting Irish. The showdown between the two schools was billed as the Indiana state championship by Notre Dame coach Mike Brey. It was the 141st meeting between the two schools separated by 140 miles. Entering Saturday night, the Irish held a 71-69 lead in the all-time series.
Villanova lifer
March has been cruel so far to local men's basketball teams. Robert Morris was knocked from the NCAA tournament Friday night. Pitt lost in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament and Duquesne didn't even make a postseason tournament.
But at least one Western Pennsylvania native had his sights set on the Final Four. Dean Kenefick, a 1990 graduate of Trinity High School, is an associate athletic director for communications at Villanova, the No. 1 seed in the East Region that was attempting to advance to the Sweet 16 against North Carolina State.
Kenefick, 42, graduated from Villanova in 1994 and never left. He began working in the Villanova sports information office in 1995 and worked his way up from assistant media relations director to his current position, which he has held since 2007.
Ray Fittipaldo: rfittipaldo@post-gazette.com and Twitter @rayfitt1.
First Published: March 22, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
