The NFL, not content to take a few hundred dollars from a fan attending the Super Bowl, is now hiking its ticket prices on a variety of seats, saying it wants to close the gap should the lucky fans who get the tickets choose to flip them on the streets.
Tickets that went for $1,250 last year in New Orleans will be $2,600 at MetLife Stadium this February, and $950 tickets are now $1,500, according to the Wall Street Journal. The NFL says higher ticket prices are justified because the game is in the New York market.
There’s good news, though — the “cheap seats,” which were $600 last year, are only $500 this year.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told the Wall Street Journal that the NFL was hiking prices because tickets end up getting resold for far more anyway, and the NFL wants to recoup that money rather than let scalpers get the extra hundreds.
“We are looking to close the gap between the face value of the ticket and the true value of a ticket to what has become the premier sports and entertainment event,” McCarthy said.
The NFL had a lottery of $600 tickets last year and got 30,000 entries, but 60 percent of the 500 winners resold their tickets within a day, the article reports. So this year, the NFL will again raffle those seats — which are $500 now — but the 1,000 winners won’t be allowed to transfer their tickets.
In the grand scheme of the game, raising prices doesn’t seem likely to calm the scalper market. With tickets already out of reach for most average fans and resale prices regularly in the thousands, the NFL is still going to get bit on the street. The Wall Street Journal article quotes one sports and entertainment firm that says Super Bowl tickets are actually underpriced by thousands of dollars.
The article also noted that indoor suites at MetLife Stadium, which have 30 tickets apiece, are already selling for $500,000.
