Cheap Super Bowl tickets.

It’s an oxymoron.

The face value (original issue price) of Super Bowl tickets is sky high.  That’s what the lucky initial buyer paid for them.  Unless that buyer is either mentally incapacitated or has been living in a mountain cave without media access, there’s no way they’re letting them go for less than that.

It’s simple supply and demand.  The Super Bowl has become the event–demand is almost incalcuably massive.  Meanwhile, the game is held at a stadium with a limited seating capacity that can handle only a small fraction of potential interested attendees.  What happens when you have serious demand like that and a limited, finite supply?  Prices go up.  Period.  End of story.  

That does not, however, mean that you have to liquidate all of your assets to score a few tickets to watch the Steelers and Cardinals next Sunday.  You’re not going to get a truly “cheap” ticket, but you can minimize the damage by being a smart shopper.

After a multi-year stretch in the ticket industry, I can assure you that I know the nuts and bolts of buying and selling Super Bowl tickets.  This is my best advice to those who just can’t resist the urge of being there to see if that critical Kurt Warner rainbow comes down in the hands of Larry Fitzgerald or Troy Polamalu…

Buy from a broker.  Seriously.  If you want the best shot at getting bang from your buck, buy your ticket from a reputable broker.  Yes, you’ll find some yahoo willing to beat broker prices on Craigslist.  Yes, there will be some mystery guy in Idaho who’s willing to sell tickets for a few hundred bucks under the going professional rate.  Some people will get a good deal that way.  Others will get completely ripped off.  It happens every year.

I can’t tell you the percentage of phony tickets that end up resulting in people being turned away at the gate or the exact odds of losing your cash to some scammer who doesn’t even come through with a delivery, but I can tell you that it’s high enough to justify the insurance policy that comes from using a professional, established ticket broker.

If you get screwed by some random guy on Craigslist, what are you going to do when your trip to the big game is reduced to listening to the second half on an a.m. radio from the back of a paddy wagon?  Are you going to hunt the guy down?  Even if you could find him, would you get your money back?  Would you get the equivalent of your damages back out of him?  Of course not.  That guy is history after he pockets your money.  It’s a faith-based move on your part and we all know the odds on a Hail Mary actually working out.

If you buy a ticket from a pro and something goes wrong, you have recourse.  You know where to go to get satisfaction.  You also have a very, very good chance of having the problem corrected on the spot.  A quick cell call to the seller stating that you have an issue may very well lead to someone running toward you with replacement tickets in hand within miutes.  The pros know how to take care of their customers and they’re not in the business of handing out bad tickets.  They want you to pony up when the NBA All-Star Game rolls around or next year when your favorite baseball team finally shores up the back end of their starting rotation and ends up in the World Series.

Now, when you do buy from a good broker, find out when and where you’re getting the tickets.  The prospect of getting your Super Bowl tickets on-site the day before the game isn’t as creepy and risky as it once was, but it’s still not quite as secure as having those babies in your hand before you get on the plane.  There are a lot of brokers who’ll advertise cheaper prices who don’t have the tickets yet.  They’re banking on their ability to secure them at the last minute to fill your order at a profit.  Usually it works out.  Sometimes, it doesn’t. You don’t want t be part of the “sometimes” crowd.  Unless you’re buying at the last second and local pick-up is the only way to get things done, it’s always nicer to have those tickets in your hands early.

As is so often the case, timing is everything when it comes to finding “cheap” Super Bowl tickets.  Pricing generally goes through a bell curve pattern.  You can lock in a good deal early–just understand that it will be an advance order and you probably won’t be able to get an exact seat location.  As the game approaches, you can expect the prices to hop upwards for awhile.  Then, usually during the week of the game, you’ll see prices slide as buyers try to move their inventory before the clock runs out.  If you can buy on that downward slope, you’ll come as close as you can to finding cheap Super Bowl tickets.  The trick, however, is finding the kind of seats you want.  The longer you wait, the less selection you’re going to have.  It also takes the nerve of a serious chicken player.  The sane and natural inclination is to have tickets as soon as reasonably possible.  Trying to wait out a good deal can be fairly stressful.

There’s also the risk that the waiting game will backfire.  There are many variables at play in these situations and sometimes you just don’t see that normal price decline.  Sometimes, prices hold steady.  They could even go up.  

You should also understand that waiting for a good deal might give you a shot at good seats at a cheaper than usual price, but that you still might’ve been able to spend less by buying a lower quality seat earlier.  When the selling frenzy kicks in, the cheaper seats tend to go first.

Some people will tell you amazing tales about how they found dirt cheap tickets right before the game in the parking lot of the stadium.  There’s a pretty good chance they’re just trying to impress you with a tall tale unless they were part of a very small minority of mega-lucky attendees.  The deals in the lot might save you a few bucks, but who really wants to travel and make all of those plans on the chance of getting a ticket?  It’s insane.  Especially when you factor in the chance of getting a phony ticket and the nature of the chance you’re taking by wandering around a parking lot with gobs of cash stuffed in your pockets.  

Not everyone will agree with my assessment.  Some people are going to complain that ticket brokers are nasty, devilish thieves.  That’s a yawn-inducing debate that, from a pragmatic point of view, has no meaning whatsoever.  There’s always going to be a secondary market for valuable commodities, like it or not.  Some people are going to swear on their copy of Brian’s Song that they always get cheap Super Bowl tickets because they know how to work the parking lot, wait people out, etc.  Believe them if you’d like.  They might be telling the truth.  What they don’t realize is that they either have anomolous powers of negotiation or they’ve just had damn good luck.

The only exceptions to all of this are the few lucky fans who get their tickets at cost and those who happen to know someone who has or gets Super Bowl tickets who just so happens to really like them.  Everyone else pays.

Oh, and just for the sake of setting myself up for a little humiliation later, I might as well toss my prediction out there…

Pittsburgh 24, Arizona 21.

Bruce Springsteen will not suffer a wardrobe malfunction at half-time.  I’m not so sure about Clarence Clemons, however.