Nicholas Cù has been on the fence about shopping for a ticket to see his beloved San Francisco 49ers play within the 2024 Tremendous Bowl on Sunday. 

The lifelong fan has attended each 49ers playoff sport for the final two years, however ticket costs this 12 months are unmatched by any soccer sport in historical past, going for a median of greater than $12,000 on some resale websites final week. 

With simply two days left till the massive sport, Cù was uncertain Friday if he’ll ever get to attend a Tremendous Bowl in particular person.

Cù requested a Fb group of different 49ers devoted in January for “tips about the very best and most reasonably priced means to purchase Tremendous Bowl tickets.” The greater than 100 replies that flooded in have been emblematic of a widely known reality concerning the large sport: it is nearly unattainable for a median fan — or perhaps a well-heeled one — to make it to the Tremendous Bowl.

Face-value tickets, that are costly to start with, are not often made out there to most of the people. 

It did not was once this manner. However in the previous few years, ticket business specialists say, a sequence of enterprise choices made by the NFL for distributing the coveted tickets shot costs via the roof — far out of the attain of most followers. 

Not possible to afford, by design

“It is only a full thriller find out how to even probably attend with out remortgaging your home to afford tickets,” mentioned Cù.

That is by design, in keeping with Stephen Shapiro, affiliate chair of the College of South Carolina’s Division of Sport and Leisure Administration.

Some tickets are distributed to NFL groups, or bought at face worth to gamers, coaches and others tied to the game. Others are given to the league’s company sponsors and companions, comparable to CBS’ mum or dad firm, Paramount World. (CBS is broadcasting the sport; it can additionally air on Nickelodeon and stream on Paramount+.)  Then one other batch of tickets goes to an occasions firm based by the NFL in 2010 known as On Location Experiences.

“There is not sometimes a basic public alternative,” Shapiro mentioned. “Groups could have tickets that they’ll promote to season ticket holders, however even that is a lottery system. After which between sponsors and hospitality and different company partnerships, tickets are just about spoken for.”

Driving prices up additional is the dimensions of the venue this 12 months. Attendance at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium is anticipated to be about 60,000 — among the many smallest in Tremendous Bowl historical past. By comparability, practically 68,000 followers attended the 2023 sport in Glendale, Arizona, and about 70,000 the 12 months earlier than, in Inglewood, California.

Face-value tickets normally value wherever from $950 for a nosebleed seat to $9,500 to be simply behind the groups, overlooking the 50-yard line. That is a fraction of what Tremendous Bowl tickets are promoting for on-line. 

Different patrons should accept secondary market websites like StubHub or SeatGeek; ticket brokers — individuals who purchase and promote tickets for a residing; or high-end packages from the NFL’s “Official Hospitality Associate,” On Location. 

The packages on On Location’s web site this week ranged from round $7,000 to greater than $60,000.

The NFL didn’t reply to emailed questions. A spokesperson for On Location declined to remark.

The NFL funding automobile with a stake within the sport

Almost a dozen ticket brokers, sports activities administration specialists, teachers and attorneys contacted by CBS Information mentioned the present construction makes it difficult for followers to get entry — and drives up the fee.

“How does a $4,500 ticket change into a $14,000 ticket?” requested one pissed off ticket dealer, who agreed to talk with CBS Information on an nameless foundation as a result of he nonetheless does enterprise with the league.

“It is greed, simply greed,”  he mentioned. 

He and others pointed to On Location, which is allotted no less than 11,000 tickets every year, in keeping with ticket brokers and different sources acquainted with doing enterprise with the NFL, as a perpetrator driving these astronomical costs. 

Earlier than On Location grew to become an element, ticket brokers typically bought Tremendous Bowl seats for just some hundred {dollars} over face worth, and a few have been arranging flights and accommodations for followers to attend. 

“I used to be making, in lots of circumstances, $50 or $100 over the face ticket worth, however I used to be comfortable,” one other ticket dealer advised CBS Information.

NFL executives began an fairness fund in 2013 known as 32 Fairness to put money into corporations and offers on behalf of the groups, in keeping with PitchBook, which tracks enterprise capital investments. Forbes’ twenty fourth Annual NFL Crew Valuations reported the agency’s investments drove the common internet value of every of the 32 NFL groups to $3.48 billion, in keeping with World Company Venturing. As a result of it’s a non-public fund, 32 Fairness will not be required to reveal its funds.

32 Fairness has sometimes invested in corporations that work with the league, together with the NFL’s information supplier Genius Sports activities, retired NFL star Tom Brady’s model TB12, the athlete restoration machine firm Hyperice, and software program corporations Appetize, Skillz, and Strivr, reported Entrance Workplace Sports activities.

It invested in and bought On Location in 2015, in keeping with PitchBook. On Location sells its tickets as a part of packages that may run tens of hundreds of {dollars}, and embody perks like limitless meals and drinks through the sport, lodge lodging, reside pre-game leisure and what the corporate describes as “bucket checklist experiences.” Lodge rooms and different facilities related to the Tremendous Bowl are booked months prematurely, with the corporate setting excessive costs as a take a look at to see what the market can bear, a number of sources acquainted with the pricing technique advised CBS Information.

One main dealer defended On Location’s pricing.

“They’re making an attempt to cost a product inside a good market worth,” mentioned Ken Solky, president of LasVegasTickets.com and former president of the Nationwide Affiliation of Ticket Brokers. “It is their get together and their tickets.”

Columbia College professor of enterprise Vicki Morwitz famous that ticket costs via resellers and brokers have been dropping within the days main as much as the Tremendous Bowl. She mentioned these waves mirrored the dynamic pricing mannequin most ticket sellers use, by which costs go up and down primarily based on demand. It is a mannequin that is not all the time fashionable with clients, she mentioned, pointing to complaints when excessive demand results in excessive costs in different industries.

“Uber and Lyft let provide and demand determine the whole lot about how a value is ready, however within the eyes of the patron, that financial actuality of provide and demand would not all the time match perceptions of equity,” Morwitz mentioned.

Shapiro, the sports activities advertising and marketing professor, mentioned the assured provide of tickets to promote, paired with blocks of lodge rooms and different facilities, creates “a aggressive benefit for On Location,” which is now owned by the Endeavour Group — a multibillion-dollar international sports activities and leisure firm that NFL house owners have a small minority stake in.

In January 2020, Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. acquired  On Location in a $660 million deal, in keeping with the Hollywood Reporter.  The NFL’s fairness fund retained 13.5% possession of the corporate, in keeping with an SEC submitting.

Endeavour CEO Ariel Emanuel mentioned in an announcement on the time that the corporate would “advance the best way shoppers and types take into consideration money-can’t-buy experiences.”

In 2022, the NFL’s funding arm purchased again its fairness in On Location. Executives exercised an choice to retake near 40% fairness within the firm, advertising and marketing Tremendous Bowl LVI as On Location’s “single largest hospitality occasion of all time,” in keeping with an annual investor pamphlet in an SEC submitting. 

Two months later, On Location grew to become a completely owned subsidiary of the expertise company, which transformed the NFL house owners’ stake in On Location to a 1.5% possession share of Endeavor. The company reported $1.344 billion in income within the final quarter of 2023.

Baggage of money, and secondary market secret offers

The NFL’s management of the Tremendous Bowl ticket market has repercussions within the secondary ticket market.

That gamers, coaches and different workers obtain and promote tickets is one thing of an open secret, in keeping with brokers who spoke with CBS Information. 

One ticket dealer known as a CBS Information reporter whereas driving in New York Metropolis with $85,000 in money in his automobile that he mentioned was to buy Tremendous Bowl tickets from an NFL worker. CBS Information agreed to anonymity so the ticket dealer may present particulars on how the brokering system works. 

Brokers mentioned they typically purchase tickets from individuals who’ve obtained them at face worth and elected to promote them for revenue: gamers, coaches, occasion sponsors, brokers or their shoppers.

Many of those offers are performed in money, and it is “not unusual to deliver a million {dollars} in money” to the Tremendous Bowl metropolis to buy tickets, mentioned the dealer.

The NFL began to crack down on these gross sales as its personal maintain on ticket gross sales grew. Yearly it notifies workers that they’re prohibited from promoting their tickets.  

“Coaches are petrified,” mentioned one ticket dealer — and so they’re promoting much less, some brokers mentioned. 

This modification has additionally had the impact of elevating the pricing, brokers mentioned. 

“Let’s simply say inevitably tickets are going to maneuver, the tickets are going to journey some street. And inevitably, a few of them are going to finish up within the palms of upstanding brokers like LasVegasTickets.com,” Solky mentioned.

Shapiro mentioned the picture of NFL personnel cashing in on the sport would not jibe with the NFL’s fan-friendly advertising and marketing.

“From a public notion perspective, I do not assume it will look good for the league if people which might be related to the league purchase the tickets at face worth and are simply reselling them to make an obscene revenue,” Shapiro mentioned.

Even with the “obscene” markup, Nicholas Cù mentioned he was nonetheless serious about pulling the set off.

“I am ready in life the place I probably may afford to buy these tickets to go, given how a lot it means. Nevertheless it’s simply so excessive for 3 hours of leisure,” Cù mentioned.

“It is only a small share of folks that have the means and the entry,” mentioned Shapiro. “We’re speaking concerning the one-percenters that get to go.”