The Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts are about as good as it could get for fans hoping to generate cash by selling their Super Bowl XLI tickets in the secondary market.
"There's nothing more ravenous than a hungry Bears fan," said Jennifer Swanson, marketing director for Ticketsnow.com, a Chicago company which had more than 900 Super Bowl tickets up for grabs Tuesday. "We've seen prices spike a bit, though it hasn't been as dramatic of a rise as I might have expected."
Just hours before last Sunday's game between the Bears and the New Orleans Saints, the cheapest Super Bowl seat on Ticketsnow.com went for $3,415. On Monday, that price had risen to $3,750; on Tuesday, it dipped to $3,675.
Super Bowl XLI on Feb. 4 in Miami is shaping up as the fourth-most popular event for StubHub, a San Francisco company that last fall brokered the sale of its five millionth ticket -- a seat for Game 2 of the 2006 World Series. Earlier this month, StubHub was acquired by EBay for $310 million, a move that signaled growing public acceptance of the evolving online ticket resale market.
On Tuesday, prices for more than 600 Super Bowl tickets available through StubHub ranged from $3,000 for a seat in the corner of Miami's Dolphin Stadium upper deck to $170,593 for a 16-person private suite. StubHub's fee on that deal would amount to $17,000 -- which would cover several tickets.
The NFL is distributing 70,000 Super Bowl tickets -- with a face value of $600 and $700 -- for the game. The Bears and Colts each receive 17.5% of the tickets, while the host Miami Dolphins distribute 5%. The remaining NFL teams split 34.8% of the tickets and the league held back 25.2% for its sponsors, VIPs and other lucky souls.
Many of those tickets will change hands during the weeks leading up to the game. It is legal to resell tickets online at face value in every state, but more than a dozen slap restrictions on how much of a mark-up sellers can demand.
The New England Patriots are testing just such a law with a lawsuit filed last year against StubHub for allegedly breaking a Massachusetts law that limits resellers to $2 above face value. Fans, however, clearly are flocking to online services to buy tickets.
StubHub's average ticket price over the last few weeks is $4,240, noticeably higher than the final $3,009 average for last year's Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks in Detroit.
