By Richard Persichetti, vice president,
Cassidy Turley
The 2014 Super Bowl will be held in the New York City area for the first time in all 48 tries.
Each year the host city enjoys the reward of a temporary boost to the local economy. Not only will New York City benefit from this, but our city can also now claim the record for the most expensive ticket prices ever for the big game.
The price for an NFL-issued ticket tops out at $2,600, which shatters last year’s top ticket price by more than double the amount seen in New Orleans.
In fact, Super Bowl XLVIII ticket prices are 21,567 percent more expensive than what they cost in 1967 for Super Bowl I.
Appreciation for Midtown overall average asking rents cannot even come close to that increase, even though they have grown an amazing 715 percent since 1967.
But this disparity between overall Midtown average asking rents and Super Bowl ticket prices was not always this sizeable.
In 1967, there was only a $3.00 difference between these two prices, with Super Bowl tickets at $12.00 a piece compared to Midtown average asking rents at $9.00 per square foot.
From Super Bowl I through Super Bowl X, this spread between the two prices stayed consistent at $2.80. For these first 10 Super Bowls, the ticket price averaged $15.10 a piece, while Midtown average asking rents were $12.30 per square foot.
Over the next 10 Super Bowls, the price differential started to spread, as the average ticket price for Super Bowls XI through XX shot up to $42.50 and jumped ahead $10.80 above Midtown average asking rents at $31.70 per square foot.
As the Super Bowl grew in popularity during the late 80s and early 90s and became the second highest day of food consumption in America next to Thanksgiving, the spread between ticket prices and Midtown average asking rents skyrocketed to $125.39.
From Super Bowl XXXI through Super Bowl XL, ticket prices got out of control, distancing itself from Midtown asking rents and increasing the spread by $381.12.
Super Bowl ticket prices averaged $432.50 each while Midtown asking rents averaged $51.38 per square foot.
The popularity for the Super Bowl and experience attending the game live must be an experience like none other, and for an average price per ticket of $1,231.25 from Super Bowl XLI through Super Bowl XLVIII, it better be.
During these last eight years, Midtown average asking rents were $66.57 per square foot, which allowed the spread between ticket prices and asking rents to run up even higher to an astronomical $1,164.68.
So as you eat one of the estimated 1.23 billion chicken wings consumed across America on Super Bowl Sunday, realize that if you are a tenant in Midtown looking for office space, the 11 percent increase in overall average asking rents in 2013 is miniscule to the increase Super Bowl tickets prices have endured.
