Shortly after we posted the news about Super Bowl ticket prices going up this season, the NFL contacted us to say it’s not quite that simple.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told PFT that ticket prices for this year’s Super Bowl haven’t yet been determined, but the premium tickets the Wall Street Journal reported would increase significantly represent only about 9,000 tickets in an 82,500-seat stadium. And the NFL says the plan is to charge $800 or less for about 30 percent of the seats, which is less than the cheapest seats cost at last season’s Super Bowl in New Orleans.
The reality, however, is that the face value of Super Bowl tickets doesn’t necessarily mean much. The Super Bowl isn’t a normal sporting event for which you can just log on to Ticketmaster and order a pair of tickets for you and a friend.
Still, some season ticket holders can buy face-value tickets. The NFL allows all 32 teams to distribute some Super Bowl tickets, with the two teams in the game each getting 17.5 percent of the tickets, the Giants and Jets each getting 3.1 percent as the host teams, and the other 28 teams each getting 1.2 percent. (The NFL retains the remaining 25.2 percent.)
But what often happens is that the fans who are able to buy Super Bowl tickets at face value through a lottery for season-ticket holders don’t actually go to the game. They re-sell the tickets at four or five times the face value.
So whether face value goes up, goes down or stays the same, don’t count on being able to find any tickets at face value. Or even close.