It shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the Super Bowl is being held within easy reach of Manhattan and some of America’s wealthiest communities, but asking prices for tickets to the game are at all-time highs. That could change in a big way next week, however.
How pricey are Super Bowl seats at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium? As the New York Post noted, on Monday at least one seller was asking just over $1 million for a suite, and many other sellers were willing to part with their suites for no less than $500,000.
The reason that suites at this year’s Super Bowl are expected to sell for double the amount in the past has little to do with which teams are playing in the game. Instead, sky-high prices are mostly the result of the location. Not only is the setting close to Wall Street and the homes of countless corporate executives, it’s also an open-air stadium in a cold-weather area. There are surely plenty of bigwigs who will pay top dollar to watch the game in climate-controlled comfort indoors, with all the amenities of a suite and the possibility of avoiding the riffraff in the stands as bonuses. The perks (and warmth) of stadium suites have to seem especially attractive lately in light of the winter storm that hit the Northeast this week.
While the chance of bad weather is causing suite prices to soar, it would seem reasonable that it would also cause asking prices to go in the opposite direction for regular seats, where patrons are fully exposed to the elements. However, that hasn’t really happened, at least not yet.
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In the days following Sunday’s championship games, which determined who would play in the big game on February 2, pricing on the secondary market has remained mostly stable—and high. On Monday, the “cheapest” seats were available for around $2,000, and as of Wednesday, the lowest get-in price posted at ticket aggregation sites like SeatGeek and TiqIQ was $1,925. The average list price has been over $4,000, and the average sales price has been hovering around $3,400—for tickets with face values of $500 to $2,600.
Experts advise that buyers should be able to snag tickets much closer to face by being patient and waiting until next week, when sellers are sure to be more eager to unload their seats. “So far demand has been average at best,” TiqIQ’s Chris Matcovich told Bloomberg News. “I’m confident that prices on the low end will drop to the $1,500 range. If the weather is questionable leading up to the game an even bigger discount on gameday is a real possibility.”
“We would advise any consumers still shopping for tickets to hold tight, and wait as prices are likely to trend down over the next few weeks as game day inches closer,” said SeatGeek analyst Connor Gregoire, according to The Morning Call of Pennsylvania. If the past is any indication of what will play out next week, ticket asking prices could easily drop 40% or 50%.
Or perhaps the bottom could fall out of the market, if a major storm hits the East Coast during the middle or end of next week, in a scenario laid out at NorthJersey.com by Steve Rosner, co-founder of 16W Marketing in Rutherford, N.J.:
“If people in Denver or Seattle are told they can’t get here before Saturday or Sunday [of game-day weekend], will they still want to come?” Rosner asked.
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If their flights are cancelled, fans who’d planned on coming in from the Rockies or the West Coast might bail on the trip entirely, in which case there could be a flood of tickets hitting the resale market only a few days before the game. It could suddenly become a buyer’s market. Who knows, some lucky fans might be able to watch the Super Bowl in person at the rock-bottom price of maybe … $500.