Super Bowl cheap seats going as high as $5,000 each; 'this market is ready to go nuts'

PHOENIX – A mad scramble for Super Bowl tickets and a mysterious lack of inventory on the open market have sent prices soaring this week.

Multiple brokers told Yahoo Sports they are having issues filling pre-sold orders for Super Bowl tickets, due to tight inventory and "worst seat available" prices that have pushed as high as $5,700 per ticket. That's considered an astronomical "get-in" price, a term used for the cheapest face-value tickets offered. As one broker referred to such tickets, "Those are the ones that simply get you into the building."

As of Wednesday afternoon, the poorest seats in University of Phoenix Stadium were going for nearly $5,000 each with taxes and fees included. The website TiQiQ.com, which compiles ticket pricing research, said Wednesday that Super Bowl seats are selling for an average of 82 percent more than this time last year, when the Seattle Seahawks faced the Denver Broncos in New Jersey.

"I think the get-in number by [Thursday] is going to get near $7,000," one high-level broker told Yahoo Sports. "This market is ready to go nuts. Like, real nuts. Like you've never seen before."

Said another broker: "You know, nobody really cares about brokers getting screwed, but it's going to kill regular fans. You're not going to see anyone just coming into town and grabbing four tickets and hotel rooms at these prices. Not when that's going to cost them at least $30,000."

Yahoo Sports viewed a broker's cache of upper-bowl 400-level "nosebleed seats" which had a face value of $950 each. Tickets in the same section as those viewed by Yahoo Sports were going for $4,500 each on StubHub.com Wednesday. That's nearly five times face value for the worst seats in the stadium. Yahoo Sports also viewed stacks of $1,500 and $1,750 face-value tickets that were going for $5,800 and $6,500 each, respectively, on StubHub. And the market appeared to be moving higher as Wednesday went along.

"At this point, that's what fans are paying, not the brokers," one high-profile ticket source told Yahoo Sports. "Brokers aren't buying on StubHub because the prices are too high. It's too early to be taking that kind of a loss on [orders] that need to be filled."

The high prices are instilling panic amongst some ticket brokers, many of whom began pre-selling Super Bowl seats as far back as six months ago, and for as little as $2,500 each. Now those same brokers are nervously watching secondary markets like StubHub and hoping inventory bloats by the weekend and prices fall drastically by Sunday. But they also agree that it's a gamble. If that doesn't happen, some brokers could book losses of $2,000 per ticket or more, as they are forced to buy anything available to make good on their pre-sales.

"I'm up probably close to about $200,000 [in profit] right now in this Super Bowl," one high-level broker told Yahoo Sports. "But if I had to fill my [outstanding] orders right now, at current prices, I would lose probably $450,000 in what I still have to buy."

Said a second high-level ticket broker: "I have several hundred [ticket] orders that are still open. The [loss] would be over a half-million dollars if nothing changes. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. I don't think it will, but I'm not totally comfortable in that, either."

The lack of inventory has left some brokers scratching their heads and pointing fingers. One said he believes the NFL privately instructed teams to delay the release of tickets to coaches, players and corporate sponsors until as late as Friday. The goal? He believes it is to financially squeeze ticket brokers who mark up the NFL's product to the tune of millions of dollars, money that the league wants to keep by funneling tickets through its own broker partnerships like PrimeSport.com. In turn, restricting the tickets available also drives the prices up significantly by starving the market.

The broker also said that NFL teams have been instructed to keep a list of who is receiving Super Bowl tickets from each respective franchise, as well as the value each team is putting on the tickets it doles out. In essence, if a team is making a profit on a ticket, it has to report that profit to the NFL.

"That makes it a lot harder for teams to move tickets," the broker said. "Because you can't just list a bunch of tickets going to a broker."

A message to the NFL requesting information about ticket dissemination was not returned Wednesday.

PrimeSport is a licensed NFL ticket broker and also has sponsorship deals in place with multiple teams, which allows the broker access to a massive trove of Super Bowl tickets. PrimeSport's sponsorships include the holy trinity in this weekend's game, including pacts with the New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals (whose stadium is being used for the game).

Despite access to an overall Super Bowl ticket allotment that totals in the several thousands, PrimeSport had less than 400 Super Bowl tickets on sale Wednesday. Meanwhile, StubHub had less than 900.

"At this same time last year, that availability was well above 4,000 tickets," one broker said. "I know this is a smaller venue, but that's a heck of a difference."

For now, many brokers are biding their time, believing at some point, either the flow of NFL tickets from teams will loosen up the market and push prices down, or PrimeSport will surface with a robust number of tickets to offer to brokers who are still struggling to fill orders.

"A lot of people are playing it cool, but they're all crossing their fingers," one broker said. "That's why this is such a gamble. You're up big and then you can be hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole in a few days time. People have no idea how crazy this game is – just getting people into the seats."

Average Super Bowl Ticket Prices Over Time | FindTheBest