Get ready for sticker shock.
The Minnesota Vikings are hosting the 2018 Super Bowl, and the team has already warned fans — get ready to pay an insane amount of money if you have any hopes of scoring a ticket. Here's what Vikings Executive V.P. of Public Affairs and Stadium Development Lester Bagley told the Star-Tribune.
"We haven't gotten the final pricing, but we know the NFL takes over the stadium, and takes over the pricing. It's going to be some sticker shock for sure for our market. Tickets are going to be hard to come by in terms of access, because the league takes them."
How much sticker shock? That's hard to say because the final prices haven't been set, but here's some data: U.S. Bank Stadium, the home of the Vikings, has a listed capacity of 66,655. NRG Stadium in Houston — the site of the 2017 Super Bowl — had a bigger capacity at 72, 220; the 2016 contest was held at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, the home of the San Francisco Giants, has a capacity of 68,000-plus but is expandable to 75,000.
So unless the Vikings can figure out a way to squeeze in some more seats, it will be the smallest venue in the last three years. You can bet the NFL will want to maximize its revenue. In 2017, On Location Experience, an NFL partner that packages tickets in bundles, sold per-ticket packages anywhere from $5,949 to $12,749. Seat Geeks notes the nest way to get a ticket is on the secondary market, and tickets average a whopping $4,314 each for the New England Patriots-Atlanta Falcons game.
Sticker shock? I would say.
