Scalpers, online brokers and eBay auctioneers figure to reap prices as high as $5,500 for exclusive club seating to the showdown between the Patriots and Colts, as demand for tickets is far exceeding the supply.
The defending Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts (7-0) host the New England Patriots (8-0) on Sunday, making it the first matchup in NFL history between teams still unbeaten this far into the season. The winner would stand alone atop the AFC Eastern Conference and have home field advantage should they meet again for the AFC championship in January.
The Colts have no tickets left to sell to one of the hottest regular season matchups ever.
�We�ve been sold out for years. I don�t have any tickets to sell anybody. There can�t really be a variance (in the number of tickets) once you�re maxed out,� Larry Hall, Colts vice president for ticket operations, said yesterday.
Tickets are available elsewhere, of course, but buyers will have to pay dearly.
StubHub.com, for example, is offering upper-level sideline seats for $167.50, and that�s a bargain.
Move closer to the field and the price skyrockets. Lower-level sideline seats are going for as much as $4,000; VIP and club seating is going as high as $5,500.
TicketsNow.com is offering tickets at more reasonable prices, if $1,200 for a lower-level sideline seat and $1,659 for a seat in a VIP suite can be called reasonable. Another online broker, TicketLiquidator.com, has row 16 sideline seats available at $1,183 each, or row 4 seats along the Patriots� sideline at $1,071.
Two lower-level tickets were sold on eBay for $688, and two more in row 11 behind the Colts bench at the 50-yard line were being offered for $3,000.
The Colts are taking no position on the inflated prices, team spokesman Craig Kelley said.
�All of our games are in demand, and fortunately the team has played well. It�s become a somewhat difficult ticket to get, but I�m not sure that we hear directly (from the public on) one game as opposed to the other,� he said.
Scalping in Indianapolis is legal, although the City-County Council banned it for the NCAA Final Fours and in March extended that to the Super Bowl as part of the city�s losing bid to host the 2011 NFL championship, which went to Dallas.
Indianapolis beat the Patriots, 27-20, in the regular season last year at Foxboro, then took out New England, 38-34, in the RCA Dome for the conference title in January. That game drew a season-high attendance of 57,433.
So far this year, the largest crowd has been 57,361 for the opener against New Orleans.