How Ticket Prices Have Changed

Super Bowl I was broadcast by two television networks to a nation that didn’t much care about this new NFL-AFL Championship game (technically it wasn’t yet a Super Bowl). Seats in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum went unfilled, even at the gaudy price of $12.

Those were the days.

When your Friendly Neighborhood Blog covered Super Bowl XIII, tickets were $30. Your FNB was parked in the first row of the auxiliary press box of the Orange Bowl in Miami; his friend Richard, six inches ahead of him as a paying customer, was in the last row of seats for paying customers. He bought a ticket as the final bars of the Star-Spangled Banner sounded … for $30.

Looking to weasel your way into Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis on Sunday? Oh, times have changed. Thirty buck-a-renos might buy a beer and a hot dog, but not a ticket. Forget face price – you could buy a new face for less.

TicketIQ reports that the cheapest admittance available for the Philadelphia Eagles-New England Patriots matchup as of Tuesday was $3,600. In the days when the game was played in fair-weather climates, savvy buyers waited until they could hear the final strains of the national anthem and then mobbed the scalpers, who didn’t want to be stuck with inventory. This game is in a domed stadium and the temperature on game day (outside) will be about 2 degrees. You won’t hear the end of the anthem and you will lose toes pacing the pavement and waiting for tickets.

Let this be said by a typist who attended every Super Bowl but one from XIII to XLI – it is a spectacle to behold. Especially outdoors, with the military flyover. Indoors? Well, fireworks and smoke and stunning entertainment are part of the hoopla. Is it worth paying for? Value is in the eye and pocket of the fan.

The Eagles have not won an NFL championship since 1960, coming up short twice in the Super Bowl (the last time against the Patriots). Their fans are pouring into the Twin Cities and driving the ticket market. They want to see something they’ve never seen.

And they will. Wait until that credit card bill arrives.

 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman