Why the average Super Bowl ticket already costs nearly $11,000

Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, home of Super Bowl LVIII. David Becker/Getty Images

• The Super Bowl in Las Vegas is now set with the Chiefs and 49ers playing for the Lombardi Trophy.
• Ticket prices are second only to the 2021 game that limited the number of fans because of COVID.
• Several factors have driven prices up, including the teams, stars, and location.

The Super Bowl matchup is now set, and if you are hoping to catch the big game in person, you need to be prepared to shell out a lot of money.

The Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers will face off in Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on February 11, and demand for tickets on the secondary resale market is already soaring.

According to TicketIQ, a ticket search engine that also conducts ticket market analysis, the cheapest ticket to the Super Bowl as of Monday is $8,872. The average ticket is going for $10,752.

The NFL’s popularity continues to rise, with tickets for earlier playoff games also seeing record highs. Other factors driving this year’s market for the Super Bowl are the teams and the location, according to Jesse Lawrence of TicketIQ.

“Vegas is the biggest driver, especially with the matchup,” Lawrence told Business Insider. “In the Wild Card and Divisional round, both games in Detroit were the most expensive wild card and divisional game we had ever tracked, and both conference championship games were both in the top 3 all-time.”

This is the first time the NFL has hosted the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. The spectacle of that combination will be too tempting for many to pass up. In addition, the game is being played by two of the NFL’s most successful and popular franchises and some of the sport’s biggest stars, such as Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce of the Chiefs and Nick Bosa and George Kittle for the 49ers.

Patrick Mahomes and his daughter, Sterling Skye. AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

Ticket prices are in rare air

The only Super Bowl with more expensive tickets 13 days before the game was the 2021 matchup.

In that game, won by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, attendance was limited to less than 25,000 — about one-third the capacity of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa — due to COVID restrictions during the pandemic.

This year’s cheapest ticket 13 days before the Super Bowl is up 49% from last year’s game when it was $5,948 to see the Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles. The get-in price for the Chiefs-49ers rematch is up 143% from the 2020 game featuring the same teams.

Chiefs fan shows off his ticket to the 2020 Super Bowl. Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The prices for the cheapest tickets have quadrupled since the early 2010s when they typically hovered around $2,000 on the day after the AFC and NFC Championship games.

The perfect storm is driving up prices

Tickets to the Super Bowl are always among the hottest tickets in sports, but this year has seen it rise to a new level.

In addition to the sheer demand for the biggest sport’s biggest game, a major reason for the sky-high prices is that tickets are not initially offered for sale to the public. The NFL and its teams distribute the tickets, most of which go to corporate partners and season ticket holders.

However, many of those tickets end up on the secondary resale market, where demand drives the market.

And then there is the “funflation” factor.

In 2023, American consumers helped keep the US economy chugging along with their spending despite inflation and fears of a recession. One of the biggest trends in those expenditures was a strong shift to splurging on experiences such as travel, movies, and concerts, including Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour.”

And now we have one of the biggest events in the world. Did we mention Swift will likely be at the Super Bowl? That certainly won’t hurt demand.

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift after the AFC Championship Game. Patrick Smith/Getty Images

It is an interesting twist for the NFL since they have been unsuccessful in getting her to perform the halftime show.

Swift will be in Tokyo in the days leading up to the Super Bowl for part of the international leg of her “The Eras Tour” concerts. She will have less than 24 hours from the end of the final show until the game starts. However, at this point, most would be shocked if she didn’t make it.

Swift has attended 12 Chiefs games since she started dating Kelce, and the team has won nine of those contests.

All these factors have created a perfect storm for the Super Bowl and demand is pushing ticket prices to a place rarely ever seen.