Getting Super Bowl tickets (and other big time events)

The Game Room
1

So the Super Bowl is in Indianapolis this year, and some friends of mine were batting about the idea of seeing how much it would cost to go. We checked out a couple of the StubHub-like sites and holy shitballs, $2200?!? Can that be right?

Other than making friends with some corporate fat cat, or someone with season tickets to one of the teams that ends up going to the Super Bowl, what’s the best way to get tickets? Anyone know?

Relatedly, anyone have any insights on something like the MLB All-Star Game?

And just so it’s not all about me, has anyone ever been to one of the big events before? What was it like? How’d you get your ticket?

2

I’ve been to a number of World Series games. Once I was taken by a client (1998); once we scalped tickets (1996 Game 6); and once we paid the security guard $50 to let us in the bleachers (1996 Game 2.)

But an event like the Super Bowl is different. Much harder I would assume.

3

Well, I’d imagine World Series tickets are much like NFL playoff tickets…you can get them if you are quick on line for them when your team hosts. My wife had World Series tickets for the Pirates in the early 90s for three years straight…and she had to send them back three years in a row.

The Super Bowl, however, is mostly sold out well before the teams are known. And tickets are EXPENSIVE.

4

I was lucky enough to go to a Marlins @ Indians World Series game back in 1997, through my brother who had a partial season ticket plan and thus was able to buy a couple of tickets. I also won tickets through the NCAA lottery for Men’s Final Four tickets once, which I scalped for a nice profit. :smiley:

5

Even having season tickets for a team which goes to the Super Bowl is no guarantee. According to this site, each participating team gets 17.5% of the tickets (and all of those may not go to fans; the teams probably use some of those tickets for staff and the families of players).

I’m a Packer season ticket holder (as 90+% of Lambeau Field is season tickets, that means there are probably in the neighborhood of 15-20K season ticket holders). Every year that the Packers make the playoffs, they have a lottery to see which season ticket holders will be offered the opportunity to buy tickets. In the past 20 years (during which the Pack has made the playoffs most of the time), I’ve won that “lottery” twice – and, in both cases, the Packers wound up not making it to the Super Bowl that year, anyway.

6

I did manage to go to the 2010 NCAA Finals game between Butler and Duke. Lucas Oil is huge, especially for a basketball game, so tickets weren’t TOO difficult to get. Plus, when people get tickets, they get tickets to all 3 games - and fans of the two losing teams typically sell theirs, flooding the market on the last day. We get the Final Four at least every 4 years now, so I’m going to make it a point to go.

I’m originally from Kansas City, which is why I was asking about the All Star Game. Kauffman Stadium is one of the best stadiums in MLB, especially since the renovation. I’d love a chance to be there for the ASG this summer. Tickets currently look to be about $500-600. That’s pretty high, but not terrible. I might go for it.

7

I bought tickets to the 2009 NFC championship game (Cardinals vs Eagles) through ticketbastard the second they went on sale. Paid face value plus all their service fees.

Getting tickets for the 2011 MLB All Star Game would not have been difficult. I received several emails from the Diamondbacks with ticket offers. I’m not a season ticket holder, I think anyone who signed up for the Diamondbacks emails would probably have received similar offers.

8

I went to Super Bowl XLI between the Bears and Colts. I got my tickets through a friend who worked for a CBS affiliate. We didn’t have it arranged before flying down to Miami, we just figured we’d do what we had to do. Even with the CBS hook up our tickets still cost $1000 apiece which was “face value” for the corporate tickets (just checked my stub and real face was $600, but there’s a lot of extra cost to acquire them even for NFL partners). We were able to get 4 tickets, but there were 5 of us in the party. The 5th person ended up scalping a ticket for $3500 through Craigslist which we all shared the extra cost of.

I also was in Detroit during Super Bowl XL and we considered getting tickets, since it wasn’t two teams we were particularly interested in seeing we decided against it, plus we were pretty broke at the time. We could have gotten into the stadium for around $800 which was dirt cheap by Super Bowl standards. Since it was in Detroit the corporate fans were dumping tickets like crazy and the fact that it was a pretty uninteresting matchup helped, very few Seattle fans made the trip. It was like 80% Steelers fans in there, and if not for them being so close the prices would have been even lower.

I expect tickets for this years Super Bowl (which I will probably at least be in Indy for, if not in the stadium) to be really cheap. Hotels in Indy will be tough to get and not many corporate big wigs will have any interest in going to Indy. It’ll be kinda like Detroit in that. If it’s Green Bay, Detroit or Pittsburgh prices will go up. If it’s New York, New England or Baltimore prices will probably go down a little due to recent success and proximity. If it’s San Fransisco, Houston, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Denver or Atlanta expect prices to bottom out for an all-time low.

I’ve been to a Final Four, 2005 to watch the Illini in St. Louis, and we managed to scalp tickets to that for about $375. They were terrible seats. A friend got them, not sure how, but we didn’t have any connections or anything. It was probably eBay or Craigslist or something. The upside though was that after the Illini and UNC won all the Louisville and MSU fans were dumping tickets like crazy for the finals. We made a good chunk of our money back flipping those to all of our Illini friends who could make the last minute trip down on Monday.

I went to a Rose Bowl, again for the Illini in 2008, and we got tickets for face value through a friend of a friend who was Illini season ticket holder who wasn’t making the trip. Those were pretty easy to get. Only $135 for awesome seats. The distance to travel and the holidays really help smooth that one out.

I was at the Bartman game. Fuck me with a spork. We dropped $325 on tickets that we scalped outside the stadium. Very good seats in the first row of the upper deck. That ticket was harder to get than any World Series ticket save the 2004 Red Sox. All in all, we made out like bandits on those. People were dumping $1000+ to get into that game, and only the prospect of 2 or more World Series games in Wrigley in the following week kept those in reach.

9

I remember looking at WS tickets for the Cubs home games on ticket broker sites after they took a 3-1 series lead, and the standing room tickets were already something like $800. If/when the Cubs get to the World Series, I fully expect that to be the toughest baseball ticket of all time.

10

Last year, I was lucky enough to attend the Opening & Closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, as well as the Gold Medal mens hockey game, arguably the three most sought-after events of the games. I didn’t pay for any of them (which is good, because I don’t have that kind of money and those tickets were way beyond what I could even hope to scrape together). I was working for VANOC at the time, mostly at Canada Hockey Place (aka Rogers Arena) and BC Place. Admittedly, working for the stadium or the team you want to see doesn’t always make a lot of sense if you’re already employed and don’t live in that city. But it is a possible way to score tickets that doesn’t involve befriending rich strangers or breaking your bank.

11

We went to the 2009 All-Star Game (and HR Derby) when it was in St. Louis. We were season ticket holders and got first crack at buying the package. If I remember correctly, only 5,000 tickets were sold to the public.

12

Getting tickets is generally not difficult so long as you are willing to pay a lot over face value for them. There are 2185 Superbowl tickets available on Stub Hub, but the prices start at $2250. Face value is between $600 and $1200.

13

The very second sentence of the OP talks about StubHub and the $2,200 figure. The problem isn’t how difficult tickets are to come by, the issue is the price exactly as quoted on StubHub.

14

Sorry, I missed that.