Super bowled over by big game’s ticket prices

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By D.L. Stewart, Staff Writer 11:43 AM Saturday, January 28, 2012

The average price for a ticket to the first of what has come to be known as the Super Bowl was $12. The public, at least those of the public who were aware of the game, were outraged by the price and a third of the tickets at the Los Angeles Coliseum went unsold.

The cheapest tickets available for next Sunday’s Super Bowl start at $2,099 for the worst vantage points, run more than $15,000 for the best and there will not be an empty seat at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

My mathematical skills are inadequate to calculate that rate of inflation. But, whatever it is, when I see numbers like those I always wonder, “Who are those people?” Who in his or her right mind would spend as much on a football game as they might for a car? Although I suppose people who can afford $15,000 football tickets don’t drive $15,000 cars.

OK, some of those in the stands will not actually have paid for their tickets. They may have won them in a contest or be corporate guests. Others will be one-percenters or presidential candidates, for whom $15,000 will magically appear as a deduction on their taxes. If they pay taxes.

But a majority of the 70,000, presumably, will be regular Americans. Doctors and lawyers, sure, but also truck drivers, school teachers and salespeople. What impels them to pay thousands of dollars to watch a game they could see on their flat screens at home, where parking is free and there are no lines at the restroom?

The simple answer, I suppose, is that they are football fanatics who, by definition, lost touch with reality long ago.

And it could be rationalized that they’re not just paying for a game, they’re paying for an experience. For $2,099, what they will experience are glimpses of a game from far, far away. Not to mention a bill for $600 a night at a two-star hotel (four-night minimum).

I am, as my wife can and frequently does point out, a pro football fanatic. One of those guys who lost touch with reality a long time ago. A guy whose Sunday afternoon plans revolve around whether the game is at 1:05 or 4:15. Somehow, though, I can’t imagine paying thousands of dollars to watch a game. Any game.

“But, D.L.,” you may be saying at this point, “if your beloved Cleveland Browns qualified to play in the Super Bowl, you’d probably pay that much.”

Which only proves that you don’t know diddly about me. Or pro football. If you did, you never would use “Cleveland Browns” and “play in the Super Bowl” in the same sentence.

Contact D.L. Stewart at  dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.

On Sunday, D.L asked if broadcast programming on television should have restrictions concerning profanity and nudity. Here are some of your replies:

“It is unfortunate that profanity and nudity sell but let’s be fair and air more programs for a middle-age female with no children who prefers her television entertainment be clean and not objectionable.”

— Stephany Sloneker, Hamilton

“Yes, yes, yes. We see so much nudity and foul language that after a while it becomes the norm. Yes, we can change channels but we have less to choose from all the time. Someone needs to police things.”

— JoAnn Roberts, Fairborn

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