By Jim Carlson
Special to PennLive
The blood, sweat and — perhaps -- fears that went into planning the 2020 NCAA Wrestling Championships will be rewarded before the first whistle resonates through U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on March 19. Before any points are scored in the three-day, six-session marquee event that caps the college wrestling season, a record will not just be broken but obliterated.

NCAA officials already have learned – at more than three months out -- that if they hold the sport’s most colossal function in a professional football stadium, people will come. How many remains to be seen, but it’s more than a safe assumption to think that the six-session record of 113,743 set in Cleveland in 2018 will fall during the Friday morning quarterfinal round, and the single-session mark of 19,776 will tumble before the opening pigtail bouts.

While colleges such as Penn State and other wrestling powers have requested more tickets each year and yet received fewer each time, the NCAA already has sold about 18,000 tickets to the general public. Anthony Holman, NCAA Managing Director of Championships and Alliance, said, typically, only 1,000 to 1,500 tickets are available to public buyers.

Holman said a total figure of tickets sold could number 43,000 to 44,000. “To get to that 43/44,000 number, they're taking the 18,000 – roughly -- that we sold to the general public, and then the 20-plus thousand that are being held for institution allotments and then another 2,300 or so that are part of suites (144 of them) that are also already sold out,” Holman said.

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