It’s one of the worst times to travel, yet Houston will welcome sports fans from all over the country this week.

Not only do the Houston Astros open their season at 3 p.m. on March 26, but also thousands are descending upon Houston for the NCAA South Regional at Toyota Center. Nebraska will tip off against rival Iowa at 6:30 p.m., and the Houston vs. Illinois match-up will follow later at 9:05 p.m. 

While the Houston Cougars have the advantage of playing in their hometown, and Illinois basketball fans are hungry for a rematch from the 2022 postseason, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the early match-up brings in  more fans than the Cougars’ with the Fighting Illini. Thursday’s early match-up between the two Midwestern rivals carries weight: it’s the first time Nebraska has made it this far in the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, while it’s Iowa’s first trip to the Sweet 16 in 27 years. 

Very few things will stop the most loyal fans from taking time off and pouring their money into a trip to watch their teams make history, but TSA wait times have given them pause. A partial government shutdown has left TSA agents without paychecks for the past month and airports severely understaffed. Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport is one of the worst, reporting wait times of over four hours. President Donald Trump has deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to help with crowd control at airports such as IAH and Chicago O’Hare, one of the closest and busiest airports in the nation for many fans across the Midwest. 

As of Wednesday, the wait times at Omaha, Des Moines, Eastern Iowa and Willard (near Champaign) airports remained normal, but a lot of fans simply don’t want to deal with the headache traveling home.

“Total drive is about 14 hours,” Paul Mowery, a 35-year-old Iowa fan living in a Des Moines suburb, wrote to Chron. “Flight prices are crazy, but it was more the uncertainty of the return trip home that made us decide to drive. If Iowa were to win, there’s no way I’d be leaving that city without staying for the Elite 8 game.” 

Gary Vogt, a 55-year-old Iowa fan traveling with his son from Iowa City, lives close to the Cedar Rapids Airport, which doesn’t pose any delays, but he chose the drive for the certainty. He used AI to map out the trip with his wife and son, a high school senior. He planned to leave Wednesday by 6 p.m., stay overnight in Wichita, then drive the final leg on Thursday morning. He’s expected to arrive by 4 p.m., including stops to drop off bags at the hotel. 

“Being able to take your son and wife to Iowa Men’s Basketball’s first Sweet 16 game as a family and share windshield time and conversation with them is priceless,” Vogt wrote to Chron. “Travel time is TBD, but we hope to make it in 16-17 hours.” 

Nebraska fans would have to dig deeper into their pockets with flights from Omaha starting at $668 apiece, but largely hovering in the $1,000 to $1,200 range. Flights from Lincoln, where the university is located, were few and far between. Seth Denney, a 54-year-old Nebraska fan traveling with his wife from Kearney, Nebraska, lives almost three hours away from the Omaha airport and two hours from the airport in Lincoln. He estimates his drive time to be 13 1/2 hours, not including an overnight stay in Dallas on the way. 

“We’re smack dab in the middle of the state,” Denney wrote to Chron. “We’d have to drive to get to Omaha or Lincoln to fly to Houston. Toss in the long lines at the airports and it’s an absolute non-starter.”