How Much Would You Pay To Attend The Super Bowl?
Let me rephrase that. How much would you pay to almost go to the Super Bowl?
The National Football League—along with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones—is banking on the fact they think you’ll cough up $200 for the chance to do it. Wait, 200 bucks for a ticket to Super Bowl XLV? That actually sounds like a steal.
Until you consider the $200 doesn’t pay for the right to a seat at Cowboys Stadium. It pays for a seat on a small patch of grass outside Cowboys Stadium, where you’ll be free to fork over upwards of $10 for every beer you drink. That’s right. This year, the NFL is setting up what they’re calling a “party plaza” outside Cowboys Stadium. After frisking fans outside to make sure they’re abiding by the same security measures the fans inside are held to, those willing to pay 200 dollars can watch the big game on a series of large high-def video screens mounted on the east side of the stadium.
Oh, and it gets better. These $200 “tickets” are being made available to Cowboys fans first and must be purchased in blocks of four meaning—ding, ding, ding—there’s a pretty good chance they’ll sell out very quickly only to be put back on the market at an even more inflated price.
So, why exactly is the NFL attempting to do this? It seems Jones—who is all about putting on a show—desperately wants to break the 31-year-old record for the highest attendance at a Super Bowl game. Back in 1980, almost 104,000 NFL fans crowded into the Super Bowl at the Rose Bowl in California and he wants to make sure that Super Bowl XLV breaks that mark.
But, at what cost? Have we become so insanely desperate as a society to break records and set new standards that the NFL would charge their own fans premium prices for tickets to a game that they won’t actually even be able to watch in person? Does anyone else see anything wrong with this effort by the league and the Cowboys?
Even without this “party plaza,” there’s a pretty good chance Super Bowl XLV will set a new attendance record. It’ll help prove that the NFL is America’s new game and show all the non-believers out there that they need to start tuning into football on Sunday afternoons next season. But by setting up this wacky arrangement for the first time, the league is engaging in a quick money-grab that it really doesn’t need to engage in. If anything, use the “party plaza” to give back to NFL fans and let them come to the stadium free of charge—or at a much lower cost—to watch the game outside.
This is the Super Bowl, NFL. Not the Silly Bowl. We just hope you keep that in mind the next time you want to institute one of these gimmicks on a national stage.
