The ghost of my paying an exorbitant price to see the Dallas Cowboys play at Arrowhead Stadium against the Kansas City Chiefs in 2022 pays me an occasional visit.
I get SeatGeek ticket alerts via email about upcoming games. I got one Sunday letting me know that secondary market Super Bowl tickets are available. Unfortunately, I don’t have a spare $7,400 to attend the game in Las Vegas.
By the late Sunday afternoon kickoff on Feb. 11, 2024, the least expensive ticket surpassed $10,000. The game featuring the Chiefs against the NFC’s San Francisco 49ers is already carrying the highest cost-per-ticket average in Super Bowl history.
I was also invited to buy two club level seats for $42,000. I hope this includes an open bar and a five-star buffet for whomever indulges.
Based on the Las Vegas location, the Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift romance, Patrick Mahomes, and a rematch of the same teams from the 2020 Super Bowl, CBS is expecting the largest respective national and international TV audiences to view a Super Bowl.
Legal Sports Report is predicting that Super Bowl LVIII drew at least $1.3 billion in legal bets, a 20% increase over wagering on the 2023 Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and Chiefs.
Kansas joined the growing list of states with legalized sportsbook gambling in September 2022. Florida, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, and Vermont reaped the financial benefit of legal gambling on the Super Bowl for the first time this year.
Note that the new states are in the South, Southeast, East and Midwest. Missouri, which is custom, is missing the boat. Of the eight states that border Missouri, all but Oklahoma have legalized sports gambling.
Missouri missed its “the house always wins” opportunity again on Super Sunday.
While Missouri, at least most of the state, is celebrating the Chiefs’ success, St. Louis can only sigh.
While St. Louis’ team played in just two Super Bowls during its time here, that’s two more than the cities of Cleveland and Detroit. Those cities are the only ones that had an NFL franchise when the Super Bowl was first played following the 1966 season but have yet to have a representative.
While this invites sob-story explanations and misplaced insults from many area sports columnists, I miss the Rams. This is especially true on Super Bowl Sunday.
The football fraternity throws a wild party on Super Bowl week and St. Louis is not invited. Sure, as fans we could attend (if you buy a ticket today for $7,400.) However, another city now has the Rams, and it has watched its team play in the Super Bowl twice since its relocation.
An aside: According to Nielsen ratings, St. Louis had the third-highest viewing audience for the Kansas City at Buffalo AFC divisional playoff game – outpaced only by the cities with participants.
I was in Atlanta for the Rams’ victory over Tennessee in the 2000 Super Bowl, following that
Oh, I had checked the cost of a “scalped” ticket for that Super Bowl and it was about $700 at kickoff. Times have indeed changed.
The Reid Roundup
Bradley Beal of the Phoenix Suns, playing with a mask to protect his broken nose, had 43 points in his return to Washington to play the Wizards. He certainly would have reached at least 50 but the Suns took him out with 8:44 left in the game…Wichita Police are still searching for the scoundrels that sawed off a Jackie Robinson statue at the feet and later destroyed it. More than $180K has been raised to replace the statute, and Major League Baseball announced it would step in to cover the cost…There are now six Black head coaches in the NFL – Raheem Morris, Atlanta; Jerod Mayo, New England; Antonio Pierce, Las Vegas; Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh; Todd Bowles, Tampa; and DeMeco Ryans, Houston. This doubles the number from the 2023 season. The other minority coaches are Carolina’s Dave Canales (Mexican American,) Miami’s Mike McDaniel (bi-racial) and Robert Saleh of the New York Jets, who is of Lebanese descent.
