Super Bowl Tickets

An Associated Press article published in the January 27 2007 Rochester MN Post-Bulletin spoke of the prices being paid for Super Bowl tickets this year. Though the face value of the Super Bowl tickets is $600 to $700, the extensive scalping of the few available seats has resulted in "upper-level seats from around $3,000 to luxury sideline suites for over a half-million dollars, though the average regular Super Bowl ticket sold online is about $5,115."

In a world where BILLIONS have annual incomes far below this amount, it is difficult for me to really understand this kind of spending prioritization, but a vice president of one of the online ticket brokers explains "such tickets are seen as admittance to a once-in-a-lifetime experience...'People spend a lot of money, thousands oof dollars quite often, for experiences like going to Hawaii, going on a cruise, going to Disney World...Fans, especially passionate fans, think nothing of spending that amount of money on an event like this.'"

One Illinois small business owner bought four tickets on line for $24,800. "'I had it up on the screen and I didn't hit that button for probably 10 minutes,' he said. 'I tried to justify it 15 different ways but it's an opportunity I probably won't have again.'" Another man " is pensive about cashing in his life insurance policy, wistful about putting off his wedding engagement, fearful about making the big purchase,” but purchase the tickets he will. In a culture that encourages rationalizing whatever spending is necessary to enhance our own personal comfort or happiness, being able to boast of the obscenely large price tag for such tickets is part of the overall “value” of the experience.

And we wonder why the United States is seen as so out of step with values in so much of the rest of the world!