By Elliot Mueller
The super bowl has consistently been the most popular sporting event in America. In 2018 super bowl LII between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles reached 103.4 million viewers. While down 7% from the previous year which totalled 111.3 million viewers, 103.4 million viewers is still very dominant. To put that number into perspective many major sporting events come nowhere near the numbers that the super bowl reaches. The Masters Tournament reached 13 million viewers, the 2018 World Series posted a measly 14.3 million viewers, and the Kentucky Derby put up 15.5 million viewers.
With these insane viewing statistics for the super bowl, one might ask “how great is the demand for this event?”. This topic interested me because I began to wonder how much would someone be willing to pay to attend this once in a lifetime event? The simple answer I found was nearly any price.
According to Forbes super bowl XLVIII was “A Lesson in Demand Elasticity”. The 2012-13 season’s super bowl XLVII was hosted in New Orleans, in the Superdome. The game between the Ravens and 49ers was a tight one, ending in a 34-31 Ravens victory. The following 2013-14 season’s super bowl XLVII, held in Metlife Stadium, New Jersey, was between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos. The game ended 43-8 as the Seahawks trounced the Broncos. Although seemingly similar, there was a huge difference between these two super bowls: the ticket prices. In super bowl XLVII Club-Level Seats (the best available seats) cost 1,250 dollars. The next level down offered in super bowl XLVII were 950 dollars. While both ticket options seem very expensive they are pretty cheap when compared to the pricy tickets of super bowl XLVIII. The following season saw the super bowl ticket prices rise drastically. The highest level seating cost 2,600 dollars and the next level down was 1,500 dollars. Both of these prices were large increases, but the interesting part is that attendance levels actually rose. Super bowl XLVII had 71,024 attendees but the following year the super bowl reached 82,529 fans in attendance. While both games were sellouts, the fact that fans weren’t scared off by these higher prices is extremely interesting. A few years after these two super bowls were played ticket prices have continued to rise. The 2017-18 season’s super bowl LII between the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots reached all new ticket price heights. The average ticket cost 4,314 dollars. But the attendance was not brought down, with the event selling out once again.
In conclusion fans will pay nearly anything for super bowl tickets, therefore they are extremely inelastic.
Works Cited
https://www.forbes.com/sites/prishe/2013/09/19/super-bowl-xlviii-pricing-a-lesson-in-demand-elasticity/#57a2c098796f (wouldn’t correctly cite)
“Super Bowl Attendance By The Numbers.” SportingCharts.com, www.sportingcharts.com/articles/nfl/super-bowl-attendance-by-the-numbers.aspx.
While demand for Super Bowl tickets is definitely inelastic, it's hard to know exactly how inelastic demand is. One reason is that supply is perfectly inelastic. Confined to a certain number of seats in a stadium, there is no way to increase supply of tickets by a large margin, causing a shortage of seats. Since the quantity supplied is so low, the people who buy tickets have a willingness to pay that is far above average. If you looked at the demand for Super Bowl tickets among all consumers, the demand curve would likely still be downward sloping as some consumers are not willing to pay such high prices. However, with such a low quantity supplied, Super Bowl tickets are always sold on the highly inelastic portion of the demand curve.
ReplyDeleteSuper Bowl tickets are definitely inelastic. There is high demand for the Super Bowl which is seen in the large number of attendees and the additional 103.4 million views. There is also a very limited supply of tickets, because only so many people can be seated in the host stadium. The high demand to watch the Super Bowl coupled with the limited amount of tickets means that despite higher ticket prices people will still purchase them, making Super Bowl tickets and inelastic good.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that Super Bowl tickets are inelastic, but when you look at the prices of the tickets sold, you also have to look at supply, taking into account the fact that there is a limited number of seats, leading to Super Bowl ticket prices really being as high as whoever selling them wants them to be. So with demand for these tickets at such a high, people will be willing to pay almost any amount for tickets, allowing for the NFL to prosper and gain large sums of money.
ReplyDeleteThe high demand due to this being a once a year event, with limited seats and no guarantee that the teams will make it to the Super Bowl again in the near future, make people extremely willing to pay to the event. Especially as the tickets sell out, and the supply gets even smaller. Some consumers certainly won't be able/willing to afford the high prices, but many are.
ReplyDeleteI agree that they are inelastic because people will pay a lot to see their team in the biggest game of the year. The teams that do not have success the most often will have fans pay more because it is a more rare opportunity.
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Like all of the comments above have stated, the supply of the tickets for the super bowl cannot change. Therefore since the supply is limited the price can be pushed to an 'absurd' price. This applies to not only football and the super bowl but all high-interest sporting events and games. There was a lot a talk and debate about the ticket prices for the world series. America loves their sports, and the supporting their teams. That often means that there is not price tag on being able to experience them playing in the championship game. Since the price of the tickets reach such high prices, it can mean that most of the fans that are looking to attend the game cannot financially justify spending that much money on a ticket to a game, leaving them to just watch it at home. This can be disappointing, and is frustrating, but there is just no way of eliminating high prices for something that has a high demand and low supply.
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