Super Bowl tickets are so expensive this year you'd be better off buying two or three brand new flatscreens than shell out for a seat in MetLife Stadium's own Arctic tundra (it's also much easier to fast-forward through the game so you can eat all the Cheetos and see what hat Bruno Mars wears without watching all the sports). But one NJ ticket holder says he WILL NOT STAND for the NFL's ticket-selling practices, so he's suing the organization for what his lawyer says could be hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
According to a complaint filed in federal court in Newark yesterday, New Brunswick resident Joshua Finkelman and his attorney allege the NFL has violated New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act by failing to make the required 95 percent of tickets available to the general public. Instead, the complaint says, "The NFL allocates one percent (1%) of its tickets to the general public...The remaining tickets are are distributed" throughout the NFL, with 5 percent going to the host team, 17.5 percent going to each of the competing Super Bowl Teams and 29 percent getting allocated among the remaining teams. The remaining 25 percent is "controlled by the NFL for distribution to companies, broadcast networks, media sponsors and the host committee and other league insiders."
The class action suit—which names Finkelman, others who purchased tickets on the secondary market and anyone else who can't afford resold Super Bowl tickets—goes on to allege that the NFL teams offer their tickets to resellers, who go on to package them with hotel stays, limo rides and VIP perks that inflate the ticket prices even more. So, essentially, if you're an Average Joe hoping to purchase a couple Super Bowl tickets at face value, chances of getting even low level seats at under $1K seem pretty slim—Finkelman paid a reseller $2,000 each for one pair.
None of this is particularly surprising, particularly if you've ever tried to get decent-ish seats to a Rolling Stones concert at Barclays and watched StubHub snatch up all the under-$200s in milliseconds, ruining Father's Day FOREVER. Meanwhile, the NFL told the Associated Press that the 75 percent of tickets allotted to teams are sold at face value and not resold to secondary markets; the lawsuit only offers evidence for that particular allegation "upon information and belief."
