Super Bowl ticket price hikes have even outpaced college costs
Last week we looked at historic Super Bowl ticket prices throughout the years. Starting with a $10 ticket price for Super Bowl I in 1967, face value prices have skyrocketed over the past 45 years - this Sunday’s game (Super Bowl XLVI) carries a face value price of $900 (for the cheap sears) up to $1,200 dollars for some of the prime seats at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. And a quick look on SeatGeek—a website that tracks ticket prices for events like the Super Bowl—shows that seats are selling anywhere from $2,000 - $5,000 in the secondary market.
As you can see in the chart below, the (face value) price increases have been relatively steady over the past 45 years.
The cumulative growth of ticket prices from 1967 to this week’s game is just short of 9,000%. That’s an annual growth rate of nearly 10.5%
And even when you adjust for inflation, the cumulative growth is still a staggering 1180% since that first Super Bowl game.
So what does all this mean? Perhaps there’s a better way to look at how high Super Bowl ticket prices have risen. Below is a table that lists of the value of goods and services from 1967 - it also lists the same prices of those goods and services today. But it also lists the extrapolated prices of those same goods and services had they risen at the same rate as Super Bowl ticket prices. Perhaps the most surprising result is that a Harvard education (tuition + room & board) would cost over five times more than today’s actual price ($270,000 vs. $52,000) had it followed the same growth as Super Bowl ticket prices. Given the dramatic price rise in college costs over the past 50 years, it’s hard to believe that ticket prices have risen even faster.
| Description |
1967 Cost |
Extrapolated 2012 Cost |
Actual 2012 Cost |
% Difference |
| First-class stamp |
$.05 |
$4.50 |
$.45 |
900% |
| Loaf of bread |
$.22 |
$19.80 |
$2.50 |
692% |
| Gallon of Milk |
$1.03 |
$92.70 |
$3.65 |
2440% |
| Gallon of regular gas |
$.33 |
$29.70 |
$3.75 |
690% |
| Ford Mustage automobile |
$2,600 |
$234,000 |
$23,000 |
917% |
| Harvard tuition + room & board |
$3,000 |
$270,000 |
$52,000 |
419% |
| Median household income |
$7,143 |
$642,870 |
$50,000 |
1186% |
| 30-second Super Bowl television commercial |
$42,000 |
$3,780,000 |
$3,000,000 |
26% |
Not surprisingly, the only item in the table that came close to tracking Super Bowl ticket price rises is the cost of a 30-second commercial during the game. Starting at $45,000 during Super Bowl I, a 30-second commercial for this weekend's game will cost $3M - comparing favorably with the extrapolated cost of $3.78M.
If future price increases continue at the same rate, then the (face value) price for a ticket to the Super Bowl ten years from now will be about $2,500 per ticket. Save your money!