Local fans seeking to be a part of history are driving Super Bowl ticket prices to record highs. With the Patriots trying to complete the first-ever 19-0 season, tickets to Super Bowl XLII are commanding several times the typical face value of $700.
At local seller Ace Ticket, seats start at $3,200 in the upper-level end zone and go as high as $10,000 apiece for midfield.
At StubHub.com, a ticket marketplace owned by
Jim Holzman, president of Boston-based Ace and AceTicket.com, said fans are more eager to travel to Phoenix, the site of this year's game, than to Jacksonville, Fla., or Houston, where the Patriots played their last two Super Bowls. But the quest for perfection is the real reason this year's tickets are commanding record prices, he said.
"It really is truly a once-in-a-lifetime situation," said Holzman, whose firm is selling individual tickets as well as travel packages that start at $5,700 per person.
Super Bowl XLII is likely to be the third straight Super Bowl to set a price record, said Damian Williams, vice president of Sports Vacations Inc., a Pittsburgh-based company selling tickets starting at $2,700. For $175,000, Sports Vacations will put fans in a corporate box for eight at the 45-yard line, with five-star accommodations.
Two years ago, Pittsburgh fans hoping to see their franchise tie the record for most Super Bowl victories drove prices up, while last year Chicago fans hungry for their first Super Bowl in two decades helped set another record, Williams said. Although tickets are more expensive this year, they might have gone higher still if the opponent was Green Bay, not New York, he said.
"The difference between the Wisconsin market and the New York market is that the Wisconsin [fans] actually thought they could go and beat the Pats," said Williams, whose company has fielded the bulk of its requests so far from New England. "In New York, they're not as interested in going to see the Giants lose."
The Pats' presence in the Super Bowl is also driving up prices for nonstop flights from Boston to Phoenix. On the travel search engine Kayak.com, Friday to Monday airfare for the Super Bowl weekend, Feb. 1 to Feb. 4, started at $2,063 last night. Nonstop tickets a week later were $511.
Although you could buy a car for the price of tickets and travel for two, fans who shell out for the Super Bowl could see some of that money again.
"If the Pats actually win," Holzman said, "I'd say the stub alone would be worth over $500."
