More on Super Bowl tickets

Back in October I blogged about my quest to obtain Super Bowl tickets. I entered the NFL Super Bowl ticket random drawing back in May. I just got my response in the form of a blue postcard.

Dear NFL Fan:

Your name was part of the Super Bowl XLIII random drawing that included all written requests received by this office between February 1 and June 1. The National Football League requests to notify you that your entry was not selected. All Super Bowl tickets available from the NFL for public sale have been allocated.

We appreciate your continued interest in Super Bowl games and the NFL.

Sincerely,

The National Football League

Well that's that. But not all hope is lost. The NFL is vowing to cut out ticket middlemen, a.k.a. "scalpers". The league is studying possible methods to attempt to get its lowest-priced Super Bowl tickets directly to fans and not under the control of ticket brokers. "The reality is that Super Bowl tickets are trading at four to five times face value," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. The league is taking it a step further. The NFL is reducing playoff ticket prices by about 10 percent. The league is making the move in response to the national economic crisis. The league also, for the first time, has authorized lower ticket prices for games in the first round of the playoffs than for games in the conference semifinals the following weekend. Tickets usually have been priced the same for those initial two rounds of the playoffs. "We want to be responsive to the economic challenges facing our fans," an NFL spokesman told the Associated Press.

I'm indifferent about this. I love watching football. I love going to games. Football gives me a respite from a hectic week. It gives me solace. During the spring and summer I yearn for it. But while I appreciate the NFL reducing the price of playoff and Super Bowl tickets, the league is pricing out the middle class. No family of four can afford to go to a football game. The price of tickets is ridiculous. But so is the price of movie tickets, automobiles, real estate, food...the list goes on and on.

Super Bowl Tickets (updated)

I've always wondered the face value of Super Bowl tickets. I'd never seen or heard the actual price. Aftermarket prices on the internet are extremely inflated so they don't give any indication of the what they cost the reseller. Finally, I found the evidence. The face value of some Super Bowl tickets has reached $1,000.

The Associated Press reports that 25 percent of the tickets for this season's game in Tampa will be priced at $1,000, according to the NFL. Tickets for last season's game were priced at $700 to $900.

The prices of 1,000 tickets for this season's game will be dropped by $200 to $500 each, the first Super Bowl price cut.

There will be 17,000 club and suite seats priced at $1,000 each, another 53,000 seats at $800 apiece and 1,000 seats at $500 each.

The only way for the general public to get rights to buy Super Bowl tickets directly from the NFL at face value is through the annual random drawing. You have to send a self addressed postcard registered or certified mail to the NFL. A few months later you'll get a postcard back telling you whether your name was picked. I've never been randomly chosen. As I discussed in my previous football blog post, the number of credit card points needed to get a pair of Super Bowl tickets has risen to 300k. My only route to attend the Super Bowl looks to be buying them from resellers on the internet. I'm going to have to get a second job.

Here's a link to a story about the Super Bowl random drawing. Check out the comment on my post as well.