Think your favorite team has improved its Super Bowl odds through free agency? Better start saving.
Many hopeful NFL fans spend the offseason dreaming about their favorite team making the Super Bowl as they monitor offseason transactions and gear up for the NFL Draft. But attending the Super Bowl in person is a bucket-list item that will never get checked off for most American sports fans.
The dream is becoming more of a nightmare. The median household income was about $83,730 in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. With prices of almost everything going up, the idea of the average American football fan attending the Super Bowl appears to be more of a fairy tale.
Financial guru Ted Jenkin said the average American simply can’t realistically afford to attend the Super Bowl on a whim if their favorite team makes it.
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Attending the Super Bowl in person is a “bucket-list” item that will never get checked off for most American sports fans. (Ishika Samant/Getty Images)
“The Super Bowl has become the biggest corporate hospitality event in America. When you look at resale tickets today, with prices for the Super Bowl being somewhere between $7,000 to $10,000, that means for the average American to attend, they would be spending four months of mortgage payments. Or if you look at the median income… two tickets to the Super Bowls is basically a fifth of your income,” Jenkin told Fox News Digital.
Finder, a company designed to help consumers make informed financial decisions, published shocking data last month that revealed Super Tickets cost “approximately 7.1% of a projected annual median household income.”
The average ticket for the 2026 Super Bowl was $5,567 on the secondary market with the lowest-price seats going for nearly $4,000 and some premium tickets skyrocketing to over $30,000, according to TicketiQ.
Jenkin, the founder of Exit Stage Left Advisors, estimates that between corporate sponsors, NFL partners and hospitality, he estimates that 75% of the tickets for the Superbowl don’t even go up for resale. In addition to the rising cost of the actual ticket, Jenkin said that flights, hotels, food, souvenirs and other entertainment will also add up quickly.
“That’s probably another couple thousand as well. So, you could spend easily, for one ticket, almost $20,000 in a weekend,” Jenkin said.
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Many hopeful NFL fans spend the offseason dreaming about their favorite team making the Super Bowl. (Jason Redmond/Getty Images)
Jenkin understands that in a perfect world, the NFL would work to make it easier for the average American to attend a Super Bowl. However, he’s a capitalist at heart and understands the NFL is a business.
“It isn’t just the Super Bowl. If you look at the Masters or Formula One, or the NBA All-Star game, these have become luxury corporate events and the average American who wants to attend these things just simply can’t afford to go to any of them,” Jenkin said.
University of South Carolina professor Stephen L. Shapiro, who serves as chair of the Tepper Department of Sport and Entertainment Management, believes the Super Bowl is simply an “ultra-premium event” that relegates average Americans to their couch.
“The average fan, if their team makes the Super Bowl, it’s going to be a pretty steep investment for them to be able to go to the game,” Shapiro told Fox News Digital.
“Each year the Super Bowl gets bigger and bigger in terms of a global spectacle,” he added. “I think there’s definitely a push to have more corporate hospitality and VIP experiences. So, you see a lot more catering to a premium audience, whether that be a corporate partner or whether it be people that are wealthy.”
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Denver Broncos fans cheer their team on against the New England Patriots during the fourth quarter of the Patriots’ 10-7 AFC Championship Game win at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado on Sunday, January 25, 2026. (Aaron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post/Getty Images)
Shapiro also said the rise of an established secondary market for tickets is also working against the average fan.
“Once ticket resales went online with StubHub, it kind of changed the game. And so, now you have this dynamic where there are people purchasing tickets as brokers with an intention of reselling them for a profit rather than attending the game,” Shapiro said. “That market helped push up an already high-priced ticket for an event like the Super Bowl.”
Shapiro believes NFL owners should be concerned that average fans have access to attend games live in order to cultivate new long-term consumers, at least for regular-season contests.
“As for the playoffs and certainly the Super Bowl, it’s a premium event. I think it would be very challenging for the NFL to make these tickets affordable with the amount of people that want to go,” he said.
The NFL Annual League Meeting is set to begin on March 29, free agency began earlier this month, and the NFL Draft is set for late April. All the offseason wheeling and dealing occurs with a common goal of reaching the Super Bowl – regardless of who can afford to attend.
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Super Bowl LXI is set for Feb. 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and fans shouldn’t expect the game to become more affordable anytime soon.
“I think for most Americans, here’s the way to solve your problem. You may not be live at the event, but you can always buy a 100-inch screen TV. It’ll be about 20% of the price, and you’ll probably have a better experience,” Jenkin said.
Fox News Digital’s Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
