Super Bowl 2015 Ticket Prices Most Expensive Ever

ESPN’s Darrell Rovell reported on Feb. 1 that average ticket prices sold on StubHub and the NFL Ticket Exchange are $4,600 and $4,131, respectively. These are the highest in the game’s history.

Super Bowl XLIX tickets are the most expensive in the game’s history.

ESPN sports business reporter Darren Rovell says the average ticket prices on StubHub and the NFL Ticket Exchange for Super Bowl XLIX are $4,600 and $4,131, respectively. Tickets sold after Wednesday, Jan. 28, saw a dramatic increase in prices. The cheapest available on Thursday was $4,500. Two days later, it rose to $7,000.

According to Rovell, ticket prices escalated quicky because “brokers sold Super Bowl tickets, as they have in recent years, without having them in hand.” The trend in recent years was to wait as the Super Bowl drew closer before buying a ticket in the hopes that ticket prices would somehow drop. That was not the case this year. Ticket resellers had a chance to buy cheaper tickets and give it to their customer or dangle a refund while confessing they never had Super Bowl tickets to begin with. 

Rovell stresses StubHub spent “an undisclosed amount of money” to make sure its ticket buyers were able to watch the game in Glendale, Az. StubHub even had a payment plan in place “to be able to pay them back over time for backing out.” 

All fans who restored to NFL Ticket Exchange got a ticket to Super Bowl Ticket XLIX, per Rovell.

On the other hand, NFL fans who bought theirs at Vivid Seats received a 200 percent refund for every ticket. However, this wasn’t enough to watch the game live because exorbitant ticket prices remained the same since the middle of last week, per Rovell.

SUPER BOWL TICKETS SO EXPENSIVE KANYE COULDN’T AFFORD BOX SEATS pic.twitter.com/l7sjKZIZg4— Worldstar Fights (@WORLDSTARFlGHTS) February 2, 2015

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told Rovell the league didn’t stray from its traditional ticket distribution scheme. The breakdown is as follows: The NFL gets 25.2 percent, the Seahawks and Patriots each got 17.2 percent, the host team Arizona Cardinals got 5 percent while the remaining 29 NFL teams got 1.2 percent each.

The Arizona Republic’s Craig Harris explains how ticket brokers secure Super Bowl tickets:

“Ticket brokers typically can obtain tickets to the Super Bowl and other major events through long-term relationships with ticket suppliers, and they often sell tickets at inflated prices without having them in hand. Brokers gamble that they are able to buy tickets at prices lower than what they are charging fans. 

“However, prices didn’t drop for this year’s game, and brokers were unable to obtain seats. By the end of last week, some brokers were refunding money.”

Both Rovell and Harris report the face value of Super Bowl tickets were between $800 and $1,900. The latter stresses scalping is legal in Arizona. Scalpers near the University of Phoenix Stadium were selling tickets for $8,500 to $9,000. 

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