Looking for Super Bowl tickets? You pay, they play
Welcome to the Super Bowl, where demand always beats supply and the teams don't really matter.
The NFL championship game is one of the largest sports and entertainment spectacles in the world. The teams aren't exactly afterthoughts, but tickets are going to move quickly no matter how popular the contenders are.
In fact, the number printed after the dollar sign on the front of a Super Bowl ticket has about as much in common with the price paid by its holder as the point spread does with the final.
Less, actually - the point spread is at least an informed prediction that comes from the bookmakers' observations of previous events and the price the public will pay to bet on its teams.
So, as we near the big game on Feb 2 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, let's take an inside look at the ticket trade.
HOW MUCH? Even on NFL.com, users in search of tickets are directed to a resellers' website, operated by Ticketmaster. On Thursday night, the cheapest ticket available was more than $3,000 (the league also conducts a lottery to purchase tickets for $500. These cannot be resold).
On Stubhub, people were willing to part with seats for a little more than $2,500, 24 days and an hour before kickoff. Needless to say, these were all in the nosebleed sections. But fans eager to lock down seats now would probably be advised to wait.
WHO'S PLAYING? The teams in the game should have some bearing on the price. Large fan bases close to the New York City area - think New England - could cause demand and prices to rise. Three West Coast teams are still alive in the playoffs, and no matter how ardently supported the San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks are, being a continent away from seeing the game in person will probably thin the horde's ranks.
The remaining teams in order of proximity to Newark Airport, just down the turnpike from the Meadowlands, are the Carolina Panthers (from Charlotte, NC), Indianapolis Colts, New Orleans Saints and Denver Broncos.
WHAT'S THE WEATHER LIKE? Regardless of what team is in the game, one more major factor could affect prices - the weather forecast. If the prospect of playing outside in 4 Celsius weather (the average for East Rutherford, NJ), doesn't seem so bad, that could be because most of the United States just experienced a polar vortex with nighttime temperatures getting down into the single digits.
As this is the first Super Bowl outdoors in a cold-weather city, there is no data on how a cold snap affects interest in tickets, but after the polar vortex, it is probably safe to assume demand would not be strong to sit outside for four hours or longer on a cold night in northern New Jersey.
WHAT ABOUT TRAFFIC? New Jersey is not known as the easiest place to drive. And that was before Governor Chris Christie's administration was found to have arranged for intentional traffic jams for political retribution.
After previously assuring the public his staff had nothing to do with lane closings in September that caused major backups at the George Washington Bridge, Christie said he had to fire an aide. His media conference to address the scandal made national news three weeks before his state is on display for the world as host of the Super Bowl.
