Even before the conference title games were decided this past Sunday, tickets for Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles were going through SoFi Stadium’s state-of-the art translucent roof.
The top VIP suite tickets were priced at $100,000 on the official NFL Ticket Exchange. The cheapest seats, high up in the rafters, were $6,000.
Once the opponents were decided—the hometown Los Angeles Rams against the Cincinnati Bengals—the top individual tickets leveled off at an average of $18,200 while the cheapest dipped slightly to $4,900.
That’s still by far the most expensive Super Bowl ticket in history, dwarfing the $12 ticket average ($92 adjusted for inflation) for the first Super Bowl—then called the NFL-AFL Championship Game—played at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1967.
Three years ago, tickets for the big game played in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium averaged between $2,900 and $4,300. The Rams participated in that one, too, losing to New England and Tom Brady.
Last year’s Super Bowl took place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa—also won by Brady, who this time led the Buccaneers over Kansas City—but attendance was restricted to 22,000 because of the pandemic. Those tickets were mostly distributed to local health care workers and first responders.
At SoFi, the Rams rally their fans by asking over the loudspeakers: “Whose house?”
The answer is, “Our house,” even though they share SoFi with the Los Angeles Chargers.
The Rams will be only the second team in Super Bowl history and the second in as many years to play the big game in their own house. They’ll be the first in NFL history to host a conference championship game followed by the Super Bowl in the same stadium.
The Rams announced an official attendance for that championship game of 74,447, although at least half of the fans on hand appeared to be rooting for the San Francisco 49ers. The stadium can reach 100,000 capacity and will certainly be expanded for the Super Bowl.
“It’s awesome,” said Rams owner Stam Kroenke in accepting the George Halas Trophy as NFC Champions after his team defeated the San Francisco 49ers in his house Sunday. “Certainly, we’ve got to thank the fans of Los Angeles. Unbelievable support. It’s been five years now that we’ve been out here. You look around you. Whose house?”
For the Super Bowl, the Rams’ ticket allotment will be the same as it is for the Bengals and, officially, LA will be the away team.
The game will also be the first Super Bowl appearances for both quarterbacks, Matthew Stafford of the Rams and Joe Burrow of the Bengals. It’ll be the first time since 1989 and only the third time the Bengals have been to the Super Bowl, while it’s the fifth time for the Rams, three of them in their LA iterations.
The Rams defeated the Titans in 2000 at the old Georgia Dome when they represented St. Louis. The Bengals are 0-2, both losses to the Niners.
As my colleague Kurt Badenhausen pointed out in Sportico’s most recent valuations of NFL franchises, Super Bowl LVI pits the league’s third highest valued team, the Rams at $4.68 billion, against the lowest in the Bengals, at $2.4 billion.
As another colleague, Erik Jackson, noted in a recent story, the Bengals are “doing more with less.”
The Bengals hadn’t won a playoff game in 31 years until defeating the Raiders, Titans and Chiefs, the last two on the road, on their journey to LA. The big question during their run to the postseason from local fans has been, “Who dey?”
The answer: “We dem!”
“This is a proud, proud moment for the Bengals,” said 85-year-old owner Mike Brown, who inherited the franchise from the founder, his father Paul, upon the elder Brown’s death in 1991. “We’ve played some close games. Every one of those teams could be where [we are] right now.
“We’re going to the Super Bowl, and our people in Cincinnati will be ‘who deying’ throughout the night.”
Kroenke’s move of the Rams back from St. Louis after the 2015 season has proven to be a valuation windfall for the franchise, which Forbes said was worth $1.45 billion, 28th in the NFL, in its final Missouri season. That’s a tick above the Bengals, who at the time were worth $1.445 billion.
Now the Rams are playing in a stadium built with private money that has a real estate project under construction all around it.
The billions of dollars in private spending was set in motion by the Rams returning from St. Louis, the Chargers moving from San Diego, and the Raiders leaving Oakland for the second time, this time to Las Vegas.
The Rams and Raiders fled LA and older facilities in 1993, the last time the Super Bowl was played in the area. Before that, seven of the first 27 games had been held at either the Coliseum or the Rose Bowl in nearby Pasadena.
Tickets for the 1993 game at the Rose Bowl, a Cowboys rout of the Bills, averaged $175 a ticket, $303 in today’s dollars.
The Rams actually played a Super Bowl in the Rose Bowl, losing the 1980 game there to the Steelers. But their home field at the time was an expanded-for-football Anaheim Stadium.
Tickets for the 1980 game averaged $30, $93 when adjusted for inflation.
Times have changed. An average ticket buyer for this year’s game might have to refinance their house.
According to the NFL Ticket Exchange, a pair in the top tier parallel to the goal line and above the ribbon video board will run $10,076. A parking pass on the stadium property in the Orange Zone is pricing out at a high of $1,487, according to Vivid Seats.
The average money spent on concessions and merchandise fans in SoFi at last Sunday’s NFC Championship game was $63.15.
Get there early for the 3:30 PT kickoff. And we’d tell you to bring a full wallet, but all transactions at SoFi are cashless.