The Super Bowl market typically cools slightly after the AFC and NFC champions are crowned and tickets released to their fans make their way into the market.
The average price is expected to remain above $3,000 because of pent-up demand among long-suffering Colts fans and the army of Bears fans spread around the country.
Internet sales now account for an estimated 20% of all tickets sold to sporting events, performances, concerts and other attractions, said Patti Freeman Smith, an analyst with Jupiter Research. Consumer demand is expected to push that to 25% by 2011, Freeman Smith said. But the size of the burgeoning ticket scalping market is difficult to measure because many transactions are completed through person-to-person exchanges such as EBay and Craigslist.
And, as Jamie Gladfelter, an adjunct professor of economics in Illinois will attest, the secondary market is complicated. The Chicago resident who lives only blocks from Soldier Field purchased two private club seats for last Sunday's game between the Bears and Saints for $900 from a friend who had purchased them at face value ($300 each) through the Bears' ticket service.
Gladfelter, who uses a discussion of ticket scalping to jump-start conversations in his Economics 101 classes, then sold his Bears-Saints tickets on Craigslist for $1,300. A Chicago-area ticket broker snapped them up, "so they undoubtedly changed hands at least one more time before someone sat down at Soldier Field," Gladfelter said.
Gladfelter said his online experience supported the economic theory that he teaches in the classroom. "There's a tendency among some students to have a knee-jerk reaction -- that 'I can't see the game because ticket brokers are charging some ridiculous price,' " Gladfelter said. "But once I explain the economics involved, and they understand that someone is buying the tickets, they usually come around."
And, as for missing the Bears' big win over the Saints? "It didn't bother me because I'm a Packers fan," Gladfelter said.
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Dollar daze
Ticket prices have risen significantly since the first Super Bowl was played at the L.A. Coliseum. Super Bowl ticket prices from selected years:
* Super Bowl I (1967)...$6-$12
* Super Bowl XV (1981)...$40
* Super Bowl XXII (1988)...$100
* Super Bowl XXX (1996)...$200-$350
* Super Bowl XXXIII (1999)...$325
* Super Bowl XLI (2007)...$600-$700
Source: Associated Press
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Divvying up
The ticket distribution for Super Bowl XLI, by percent:
AFC champion: 17.5
NFC champion: 17.5
Host team (Dolphins): 5.0
Other 29 teams: 34.8
NFL: 25.2
Source: superbowl.com
