San Francisco 49ers

Super Bowl 50 at Levi's Stadium Predicted to Have Highest Ticket Prices in Game History: Experts

It’s been 30 years since the Bay Area hosted a Super Bowl game.

It was 1985, the San Francisco 49ers beat the Miami Dolphins at Old Stanford Stadium, and a ticket cost a mere $60.

Times sure have changed.

Even adjusted for inflation, ticket prices have skyrocketed since that Bay Area fan-favorite game.

Secondhand markets such as StubHub are charging anywhere from $3,500 to tens of thousands of dollars for a coveted seat at Superbowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium – and fans are accordingly emptying out their wallets.

According to StubHub spokesman Glenn Lehrman, this year will go on record as having, on average, the most expensive Super Bowl ticket ever.

"Early on, right now, the tickets are probably higher than they’ve ever been," he said. "And that probably is the Silicon Valley effect you’re seeing right now."

Lehrman added that StubHub is also spending more in preparation for the Feb. 7 game, noting that the company spends more of its resources on the Super Bowl "than probably the next 100 events combined."

Tickets to the annual game are notoriously hard to come by, partly due to the National Football League’s scattered disbursement of them.

In past years, each team in the Super Bowl got 17.5 percent of the tickets for their fans, the remaining NFL teams got 1 percent, the host team received 5 percent, and the NFL League Office kept the rest for sponsors and the general public.

"This is the ultimate Golden Ticket," said Andy Dolich, the 49ers' former chief operations officer. "[When you have tickets], what you find out is that you have more friends than you ever thought you had in life."

Of course, scoring the ticket is the hard part.

If fans have exhausted all of their options and still can’t find a ticket that works for them, Lehrman recommends waiting the day before the game, when prices drop.
 

Contact Us