Still trying to find a ticket to Super Bowl LVII? The last time I checked, you'd pay at least $4,000 on NFL partner sites.
But what if you could get the same ticket for just $700?
I started searching online at Craigslist and OfferUp while trying to find the best deals on tickets for the big game.
One seller wanted $650 for his tickets.
Another seller asked $700 and had a few seats available.
Since no Super Bowl tickets are sold to the public, they are only available if they are re-sold.
Paying hundreds instead of thousands is alluring — and it can be dangerous.
Think about it. Why would anyone re-sell their Super Bowl tickets for thousands less than they can get somewhere else?
On the NFL's partner resale sites, all Super Bowl seats were going for more than $4,600 the last time I checked.
Those $650 seats I found on OfferUp were going for $10,000 when resold on Ticketmaster.
And the $700 tickets were supposedly for prime seats, just 20 rows from the field on the 50-yard line! On Ticketmaster, just two rows away, those seats cost $17,500 each.
"You definitely want to avoid things like somebody posting on Craigslist or these other third-party marketplaces where you don't know who you're dealing with. There's no sort of guarantee," says Michael Buchwald, the NFL's Senior Counsel.
He says this is the third Super Bowl since the NFL said goodbye to paper tickets. They now only accept mobile tickets.
"... A dynamic bar code that refreshes, so you can't copy it, you can't steal it, you can't take a screenshot of it and use the screenshot to get into the stadium," Buchwald says.
The digital tickets can be rendered through the NFL One Pass app and saved to Apple or Google apps.
Back to those cheap tickets, I engaged with one online seller.
"I could do Zelle.. If you're willing to send me partial payment, I can transfer them over," the seller texts.
They want my money upfront.
"Send me the price for one ticket and I'll transfer all four," the seller texts.
So, I'm supposed to give him $700 before I get anything?
"Just trying not to get ripped off selling tickets again," the seller explains.
The online conversation even triggers an OfferUp "safety tip."
It says that the message violates guidelines: "We recommend not continuing this conversation."
And I'm done.
Never transfer money for only promises.
Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, and StubHub are NFL resale partners and tickets are NFL authenticated.
If you choose a different site, check online reputations, look for a guarantee, and pay with a credit card.
Bottom line: if you show up with a bad ticket, Buchwald says unfortunately, "you're not going to get into the game."
And you know who's really raking it on these Super Bowl tickets? It's the ticket-selling sites and their outrageous service fees.
I checked a $4,600 ticket on StubHub. The site added a $1,600 fee. Yes, a 34% added cost.
So you really pay $6,247. That's absurd.
Tell me what you think of those fees by emailing me at joe@abc15.com.
Here's what the NFL says about buying tickets for the Super Bowl:
"Super Bowl LVII tickets will continue to be all digital. Hard stock tickets will not be sold for Super Bowl LVII.
Ticketholders are encouraged to download the NFL OnePass App to access their tickets, and then to add their tickets to their phone's Apple Wallet or Google Pay app, for quick and easy access on game day.
Super Bowl LVII tickets utilize technology that creates an encrypted barcode that refreshes so it cannot be copied or stolen. Screenshots of tickets, PDF tickets, or anything else purporting to be a digital or hard stock ticket are not valid and will not get you into the game.
The NFL has devoted significant resources to providing our fans several options to securely purchase tickets to NFL games, including the Super Bowl. A prime example of these efforts is the establishment of the NFL Ticket Network, which is a network of ticket resale sites that employs technological measures to definitively verify the authenticity of NFL tickets sold via each participating platform. The NFL Ticket Network currently consists of the NFL Ticket Exchange by Ticketmaster - the official ticket exchange of the NFL, SeatGeek, and StubHub.
If buying from resellers, we urge fans to buy only from reliable, reputable sources, like the NFL Ticket Exchange by Ticketmaster, On Location, other ticket resale sites in the NFL Ticket Network, or established ticket retailers that you can trust.
When buying tickets, use a credit card or other secure form of payment; avoid any transactions requiring payment for tickets in cash or through cash payment apps. "
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