Article Summary
The article is highlighting the sale of Super Bowl tickets. It is evident from the article that the prices of Super Bowl tickets are plummeting due to various reasons. The tickets are being sold at $1,400, which is $1,000 lower than the previous year’s price. Due to the low prices, insiders are arguing that the tickets of Super Bowl would be sold for the face value, which would be the highest ever to be sold since 2002 where the tickets were sold at $400.
Rovel (par 3) argues that the prices of Super Bowl tickets are plummeting because there are very few short sellers and that the location of New Orleans is not optimal since it is not easy to make it to the city at the last minute. In addition, there is limited local interest for fans to watch Super Bowl games and corporate fans that do not go to the game characterize the city. Therefore, Rovel (par 7) perceives the Super Bowl-ticket market as a puzzle because it is not easy to know the teams and the ability of their fans to travel.
Plummeting Super Bowl Tickets
The plummeting of the prices of Super Bowl tickets could be attributed to several factors. First, the number of short sellers decreased drastically as majority of them sat out of the year’s event.
The short sellers chose not to participate in selling the tickets of Super Bowl because they feared the ability of both teams (Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys) making the game. Making the game for any of them could result in the team members losing their shirts. The other factor was the location of the game in New Orleans whereby Rovel argues that it is not the best since the city cannot be accessed at the last minute.
The fact of accessing the city to attend the Super Bowl event means that one has to fly to Houston then drive to New Orleans in 4-5 hours and this has made most fans of the teams keep off from the event. In addition, the locals in the city of New Orleans do not have much interest in Super Bowl games since only 10 games out of 47 have been played in the city. Lastly, most of the super Bowl fans in the city are corporate fans that do not go to the game. This implies that the demand for the tickets will remain low.
Factors affecting the supply and demand of Super Bowl Tickets
Availability of alternative activities: The market of Super Bowl tickets is a perfectly competitive market in which there are many differentiated products sold by different firms. The demand of Super Bowl tickets is affected by the availability of alternative activities for Super Bowl fans. For instance, Rovel argues that most fans are corporate fans that do not go to the game, but would rather attend to meetings and go to parties.
Tastes and preferences: Most of the fans in New Orleans do not like Super Bowl and their low numbers that purchase Super Bowl tickets indicate this (Hubbard and O’Brien 59).
Accessibility to the City: the last minute access to New Orleans city to watch the Super Bowl game is not easy since one has to take a flight to Houston and then take a 4-5 hours drive to the city. The whole journey is costly and takes much time. This keeps many fans away especially those that come from other cities to support their favorite teams. Thus, low turnout reduces demand for the tickets.
Works Cited
Hubbard, Glen and O’Brien, Anthony. Macroeconomics + Myeconlab With Pearson Etext Access Card. 4 ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. 2012. Print.
Rovel, Darren. “Why the Plummeting Super Bowl Tickets?” ESPN. 2013. Web.