Super Bowl 2013 Ticket Mania Kicks Off

(Image credit: Mark Humphrey, Matt Slocum/AP Photo)

Now that the two teams for Super Bowl 2013 are known,  fans of the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens who don’t have tickets are off to the secondary market, where the average price of a ticket is about $3,195.14.
As of Monday morning, the lowest price for resale tickets was $2,168, according to ticket tracker TiqIQ.
Last year, the average price on Jan. 21 was $3,678.12, with the lowest price, $2,037.
Even before Sunday’s playoff games that determined who would compete in Super Bowl 2013, marketers and others in the industry were watching with anticipation who would be competing in one of the most-watched sporting events of the year.
Chris Matcovich, director of data and communications at TiqIQ, said the National Football Conference’s San Francisco 49ers and American Football Conference’s Baltimore Ravens going head to head would be the “golden game” for ticket sales for two reasons.
First, advertisers and the media have already become excited about the match-up between coaching brothers Jim Harbaugh, 49, of the 49ers, and John Harbaugh, 50, of the Ravens.
Second, the 49ers have a large market in San Francisco, meaning a large fan base that might  be willing to travel to New Orleans. Plus, the 49ers  haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1994.

“At the end of the day, marketers and ticket sellers are hoping for a good game and praying for the right teams,” Matcovich said.

Tim Nelson, president of Chicago-based advertising agency Trisect, said a match between the 49ers and Patriots may have been a favorite among other advertisers.

“I think some of the appeal in the games is the quality of the franchises, plus their heritage and history in the game,” said Nelson, who  grew up in New England and admitted he was  a Pats fan.

For any fan, getting a ticket to Super Bowl XLVII will cost a pretty penny.

The National Football League held a fan drawing of about 1,000 tickets last year.

In the past two weeks, the NFL began distributing tickets to its teams to sell to fans through drawings, or to distribute to sponsors. The NFL give out  17.5 percent of tickets to the AFC team and 17.5 percent go to the NFC team. The host of the 2013 Super Bowl game on Feb. 3, the New Orleans Saints, received 5 percent of tickets. Each of the remaining 29 NFL teams receives 1.2 percent of the tickets.

The official list prices for the Super Bowl’s upper bowl, lower bowl and club seats are $850, $950 and $1,250 for 2013, according to Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman.
McCarthy cautioned that the only guaranteed secondary ticket seller of the NFL is the NFL Ticketmaster Ticket Exchange.
“Buyer beware beyond that,” McCarthy said.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com