The Super Bowl is a little more than a week away. This game is an opportunity for fans to celebrate football, even if their favorite team isn’t playing in the game. But as the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams gear up for the big game, it’s important to bring up a relevant issue. 

The Super Bowl is a time for the fans of their respective teams to enjoy the opportunity to see, in this case, either the Bengals win its first Super Bowl or the Rams to win its second. 

At least in recent years, the National Football League has been looking for ways to expand and earn more revenue. There is nothing wrong with that, but when a major sports organization focuses more on money and less on its players and fans, there lies a major issue.

Some of the ways it’s been focusing on money include creating Thursday night and Monday night games. The thrill of having two more primetime games is fun but the addition of these games brings in extra revenue to the NFL. 

With the Super Bowl, the NFL is already bringing in millions of dollars from merchandise sales and advertising revenue. Hotel, airfare and money for the week itself are enough of an expense for attendees. 

With all of that being said, there’s no real reason to have tickets to the actual game be so expensive.

Fans, no matter if they’ve seen their team go to five Super Bowls or none, wait eagerly every season to see if their team makes it to the big game. In addition to that, they may have waited their entire lives to see a team go to the Super Bowl. If they have the opportunity, they should be able to celebrate at the big game. But they don’t have the opportunity as easily as they used to because the Super Bowl is so expensive. 

In 1967, the average ticket cost $12. Granted, the cost of living is way different in 2022 than it was at the beginning of the Super Bowl era, but today that equates to $100. 

The average cost of a Super Bowl ticket in 2020 was $6,785, according to TheStreet. 

Currently, those Super Bowl seats are occupied by people in a higher economic class. If there are genuine fans who are lucky enough to attend, that’s great. Having those seats be filled by people who just want to attend the game because they can take away from the game’s genuine fun for the fans. We should give the opportunity for fans to go to the Super Bowl, when they have been waiting for the moment their team makes it to the final game.

There’s nothing wrong with monetizing the Super Bowl, it’s a major opportunity for smaller members of the sports community to network with bigger names. Big companies get to advertise in funny or inspirational ways during commercial breaks. It has become a cultural event on a national scale, but we shouldn’t forget that the Super Bowl is a time of celebrating the game of football with fellow “die hard” fans who enjoy it.

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