When you buy Super Bowl tickets from a broker, that broker doesn’t necessarily have those tickets in hand. Usually, the broker can get the tickets before the game. Sometimes, the broker can’t — and the customer is out of luck.
That’s what happened to a lot of fans this year, when Seahawks and Patriots fans traveled to Phoenix in large numbers, meaning the demand for tickets was much greater than the supply. As a result, some fans who purchased tickets in advance from brokers arrived in Phoenix only to find out that the brokers couldn’t produce the tickets they’d sold.
Patriots fan Kevin Sheehan told the ABC affiliate in Rochester, New York that he and his dad bought Super Bowl tickets four months ago at $1,800 each. It was only when they arrived in Phoenix that they found out the broker didn’t have the tickets. They watched their team win the Super Bowl on TV instead.
“This was big for both of us,” Sheehan said. “To be duped like that, they didn’t tell us until we get to Arizona.”
Another ticket broker, Vivid Seats, admitted some of its customers were left out of the game despite having paid in advance for tickets. Vivid Seats blamed that on “an unprecedented market environment for tickets.”
For brokers and individuals who actually had tickets to sell on Super Bowl Sunday, the going rate was about $9,000 a ticket, for the cheap seats. Spending thousands of dollars on a ticket is a significant investment for a one-day experienced. You’d hope that spending the money would guarantee that you actually get to experience the game.