Super Bowl LV ticket prices keep dropping days before the big game

The air has gone out of normally inflated ticket prices for Sunday’s Super Bowl LV in Tampa with ongoing COVID concerns, the return of a reigning champion, scaled-down events and, for the first time, a team playing in its home stadium.

“This year is an anomaly,” said Jeff Gurian, vice president of Gametime, an online ticket seller, “and that’s an understatement.”

Cardboard cutouts will outnumber fans for the 6:30 p.m. game at 65,890-seat Raymond James Stadium. Social-distancing mandates have limited the available tickets to 14,500. Vaccinated first-responders will fill 7,500 more seats for the match-up between the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

This week’s price decline surprised many, especially because the values had spiked right after the Jan. 24 conference championships. After Tom Brady led the Bucs to their first NFC title in 18 years, the price for available tickets jumped from $10,000 to $14,000. Since, Gurian said, they’ve been going in reverse.

“Last year, in the weeks leading up to the game, prices actually increased about 40% ” said Gurian. “This year they’re down 40%.”

Prices vary from site to site and most online sellers now demand that tickets be purchased in blocks of two, four or six, but at Gametime the lowest price Wednesday for a single seat was down to $4,965, more than $1,000 less than the price just a day earlier. By Thursday, the cheapest ticket had taken another dive to $3,973. Figures were similar at several other web-based ticket brokers.

Gametime’s median ticket was selling for $10,000. The most expensive, which had fetched $50,000 two weeks earlier, was $25,000. A prime lower-level sideline seat had dropped to $16,000 by Thursday.

Face values on the Super Bowl LV tickets range from $950 for a seat in the stadium’s upper corners to $3,600 for the best lower-level locations. But it’s nearly impossible to find any at those prices, said Gurian, whose company serves as a conduit between sellers and buyers.

“Very few people are able to buy at list these days, especially for high-demand events like the Super Bowl,” said Gurian. “Usually the inventory sells out and hits the secondary market pretty quick.”

Some of the purchasing reluctance is undoubtedly COVID-related. But the fact that the Chiefs are appearing for a second straight year may have tempered their fans’ enthusiasm. And the overall Super Bowl-week experience, with many of the traditional auxiliary activities abridged or eliminated, will be diminished.

With the game in their backyard, Bucs supporters in Tampa might simply be taking a wait-and-see attitude. Not having to book flights or hotels, they can afford to wait until the last minute.

“They can sit on the sideline and decide the day before the game or even that morning,” Gurian said.

Online brokers typically acquire the tickets they sell from several sources, including the league and corporate allocations. Some come from season-ticket holders especially now that brokers hold blocks of season tickets for teams throughout the NFL.

So is there a bottom to this decline? Will prices continue to plummet in the days before the game or will they ramp up as it grows closer?

For Super Bowl LIV in Miami last year, prices shot up the day before the game, said Gurian, moving from an average of $7,200 to $8,500.

“It’s impossible to say what’s going to happen this time,” said Gurian. “I don’t think they’re going to crash. But there’s still a decent amount of inventory out there and that will put pressure on sellers to keep lowering prices.”