On February 11, 2024, 123.7 million people tuned into the Super Bowl, the largest audience of any telecast in US history. This viewership further reinforced the NFL as a cultural behemoth, with the Super Bowl as its signature event. This year the Super Bowl took place at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, which has a capacity of 65,000. Though this sounds like a lot, it is only a fraction of the millions of people who watch the Super Bowl live. It is probably the most exclusive major game to watch in person in the US.
Now as custodians clean up the trash left over from the big game and teams gear up for the offseason, we can see that the Super Bowl is not only one of the biggest traditions in the United States but also one of the most expensive. In line with ticket price trends, the only people who flew into Vegas for the Super Bowl this year were the rich and well-connected.
While most people just saw a game on Sunday, the NFL was watching it through green-tinged goggles, salivating at the money they were raking in. The NFL spent about a million dollars a minute on Usher’s thirteen-minute halftime concert, which he wasn’t paid for.
A million dollars a minute sounds like a lot, but dwarfs in comparison to the money companies were giving the NFL. It costs seven million dollars to buy one thirty second ad in the Super Bowl. The reason they did this was obvious, monetary. Though people look forward to Super Bowl ads, “I look forward to the Super Bowl ads as much as I do the game. I think they’re a crucial part of the event overall, and people honestly talk about it after more than the game,” Said Jay Huynh, a junior at Ida B. Wells. The NFL has many lucrative broadcasting deals for the whole season, not just the Super Bowl. The amount of money companies pay to display the NFL is over two billion dollars each. To put this in perspective, the money spent on broadcasting one NFL season, from just one channel, could build a whole new Allegiant Stadium, which cost approximately $1.9 billion.
Once in Vegas, a little bit of a lifeline is thrown in the form of lower hotel costs — yet even then hotel rates are higher during Super Bowl weekend. Vegas hotels are cheaper than other cities because of the extra revenue from gambling. It costs an average of $391 per night which sounds like a lot, but is only a fraction of the $600 per night you’d spend in Arizona during last year’s Super Bowl.
The tickets are what you are going to pay the most for. According to Ticketmaster, the cheapest ticket that they sold was $8,000 for a nosebleed seat. The ticket resale platform StubHub told CBS that last-second tickets were going for as high as $37,000. On Ticketmaster, it was even more egregious with tickets going for as high as $45,000. To put how pricey these tickets are into perspective, the average cost of Super Bowl tickets is $8,600. Tickets to the Taylor Swift Era’s tour had an average price of $1,008, according to CNBC. Tickets to the concert of the ‘biggest pop star’ in the world cost less than an eighth of what Super Bowl tickets cost.
Tickets for the Super Bowl didn’t use to be this expensive. When the Super Bowl first started in 1967, tickets only went for $90 adjusted for inflation. It was only in the early 2000s when the average ticket cost was over $1,000, and then in 2020 when the price of tickets broke $5,000.
The fact that the Super Bowl is in Vegas probably plays a large contributing factor to why tickets are so expensive. Allegiant Stadium is geared towards the wealthy with an abundance of high-priced VIP seats.
Though a large chunk of the money generated by the Super Bowl is enriching the NFL, the Super Bowl does have a positive impact on local businesses. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, the 2023 Super Bowl generated $1.3 billion worth of economic activity in Arizona where it was held, including $91 million spent on hotel rooms during the Super Bowl weekends, with the hotels in the area stretched at 90 percent capacity. The impact of the Super Bowl economically also goes beyond its host cities, with supermarkets seeing increased activity as people buy their favorite game day snacks.
Though it is very hard to see live, the Super Bowl is still one of the most powerful events in America. However, prices for tickets to the Super Bowl have skyrocketed in recent years as NFL profits have increased. To watch the Super Bowl in person costs more money than it ever has before. Simon Walsh, a senior at Ida. B. Wells said “On one hand, no tickets shouldn’t be that expensive, that’s ridiculous. But on the other hand, if people feel they really need the in-person experience and can afford to pay that much, then I see no reason they shouldn’t price tickets that high.” Ticket prices will remain this high until we as a society say “enough” and stop paying for them.
