When the Minnesota Vikings scored the first touchdown in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday to go up 7-0 over the Philadelphia Eagles, Super Bowl ticket prices on secondary-market site Tickpick shot up to $5,700.
But then the Eagles scored, and scored again, and went on to dominate the Vikings —and Super Bowl ticket resale prices fell, and are still falling.
The problem: Minnesota fans had been driving the market ever since the Vikings won their divisional game on Jan. 14. The Vikings looked likely to be the first team ever to play in the Super Bowl in their own home stadium, and attendance at a home Super Bowl would naturally be dominated by fans of the home team. Minnesotans would not have to book a flight or hotel to go to the big game, so they were especially willing to pay up for tickets. Many of them bought tickets prior to the NFC Championship Game.
Now Vikings fans are desperate to sell off their tickets, and it’s sending prices down.
By Monday night, the “get-in price” (cheapest ticket available including tax and fees) on Tickpick, which does not charge buyers any fee, had fallen to $3,850. On StubHub, it was at $4,675, a full $1,000 cheaper than it was on Monday morning. Vivid Seats had it at $4,796.
Tickpick CEO Brett Goldberg believes prices will go even lower. He has encouraged Vikings fans who bought their tickets through his company to sell them off sooner than later to minimize their losses.
On Sunday night, one Vikings fan who had spent $18,000 on tickets on Tickpick resold them for $12,000. That may sound insane — why not wait to see if prices go up again? But if prices don’t go back up, that person’s losses could have been worse than $6,000. “Every year ticket prices drop as the event approaches, with the exception of Super Bowl 49,” Goldberg says. “If the Vikings won, then [the trend we saw with] Super Bowl 49 would have been relevant. But I can say with a high degree of confidence that Super Bowl tickets are going to continue to decrease in value.”
All of this is good news for you if you are looking to buy tickets right now.
Prices are going down, and if you could stand to wait even longer they will likely drop even more, regardless of which secondary site you use. Just look at the below pie charts showing orders on Tickpick by state: the left side was before the NFC Championship Game, the right side was on Monday morning. The portion of buyers from Minnesota is dropping, and, unsurprisingly, buyers from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are rushing in.
But be warned: get-in prices frequently pop back up a little 72 hours before the game, and remember that you’ll have to pick up Super Bowl tickets in person in Minneapolis — the NFL doesn’t give them out to vendors any earlier than the weekend of the game, out of security concerns — which means that if you wait until the day of the game to buy, “You’re going to be driving yourself crazy,” Goldberg says. Does the average fan feel comfortable not yet having their tickets in hand on the morning of the game?
Still, he reiterates, “Historically speaking, if you look at the charts, you’re best served to wait.” For as long as you can stomach it, that is.
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Daniel Roberts is the sports business writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.
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