Fan Sues Over Exhorbitant Cost of Super Bowl Tickets

In the eyes of an angry New Jersey fan, the NFL is not playing fair with its Super Bowl ticket policy. So he’s gone to court.

Josh Finkelman, who purchased two tickets to the big game for a grand total of $4,000, filed a “class-action suit on behalf of anyone forced to pay more than face value for the Feb. 2 Super Bowl, or anyone who wanted to buy seats — and couldn’t afford them,” reports the New York Daily News.

Here’s what the lawsuit alleges:

• The NFL keeps 25 percent of the tickets to give to “companies, broadcast networks, media sponsors, the host committee and other league insiders.”
• The league violates the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, which says no more than 5 percent of available tickets can be withheld. And since the big game is being played in New Jersey this year, Jersey rules apply.
• Only 1 percent of tickets are released for sale to fans at face value through a lottery.

The NFL’s response? That “nearly 75 percent of the tickets are distributed to the NFL’s teams, which sell the seats at face value to their fans,” the Daily News said.

But, according to the Star-Ledger of New Jersey, the lawsuit says:

… upon information and belief, individual franchise teams do not make their allotments available to the general public, but instead offer them, in large part, to resellers, who grossly inflate the price and then repackage the tickets into costly packages. … The resellers are promised access to these tickets from the franchises, via ticket contracts entered into years in advance, that provide for specific quantities of Super Bowl tickets before the tickets are even printed.

“I believe they need to release the seats at face value,” Finkelman said. “We’re the ones who support the team, who buy the jerseys. We should be able to go at a fair price.”

Let’s see how this lawsuit gets resolved. But meanwhile there’s no doubt that Super Bowl tickets can cost an outrageous amount of money. The Associated Press reports:

In September, the NFL said it expected the most expensive tickets for its championship game will be about $2,600 each for 9,000 premium seats … .

That’s more than twice the $1,250 cost for similar tickets at last season’s Super Bowl in New Orleans.

The next tier of seats is expected to go for $1,500 compared to $950 in New Orleans. About 40 percent of general admission seats will be under $1,000 … .

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