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Bucs Among Leaders In NFL Ticket Prices

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By TED JACKOVICS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 13, 2007

TAMPA - The cost of seeing a game played by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is among the highest in the NFL, but at least it's cheaper than going to a Broadway play.

Such a comparison to the Great White Way probably isn't reassuring to Bucs fans. Still, an average family of four would pay $43.24 less than the $450 that theater fans paid for a single ticket Monday for Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" in New York City. And unlike their counterparts on Broadway, the four Bucs fans also get food, drinks, caps, programs and parking.

The Bucs rank eighth this season among 32 National Football League teams on the Team Marketing Report's annual "Fan Cost Index," in which the Chicago-based sports marketing publisher compares average prices to attend major-league sports events.

That information may be relevant to more Tampa fans this season as the Bucs have advertised that some individual game tickets are available for their eight home games on Ticketmaster.com, (or through Ticketmaster at 813-287-8844).

"We have a few hundred tickets for each game from a combination of visiting team returns and tickets held for the Bucs staff," said Jeff Kamis, the team's director of public relations.

The Bucs provide each visiting team 526 tickets, and whatever tickets remain unsold are returned to Tampa and sold the week of the game, Kamis said.

"Nothing really has changed in our policy from previous seasons," Kamis said. The team has sold out its season tickets, and about 100,000 people remain on the season ticket waiting list, he said.

The New England Patriots ranked first in the price of a game package for four people at $482.47, while the Jacksonville Jaguars ranked at the bottom with a cost of $271.42, the Team Marketing Report data issued this month stated.

A hypothetical family of four's cost of $406.76 to attend a Bucs game in 2007 is $39.45 higher than the NFL average and 6.7 percent higher than the Bucs' index a year ago. That compares with $171.37 for a similar package this season for a family of four for a Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball game, Team Marketing data showed.

Last season, the same package for four fans would have cost $265.09 for a Tampa Bay Lightning ice hockey game and $217.14 for an Orlando Magic basketball game. The 2007 comparisons for the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association won't be available until the beginning of the seasons.

Of course, professional football fans have just eight regular season and two preseason home games to attend, compared with 81 regular season home baseball games and 41 home games each in basketball and hockey.

So it might stand to reason that the cost of any single football game might not matter quite so much to those fans, since there are fewer opportunities to attend.

Not so, said Jon Greenberg, executive editor of Team Marketing Report.

"The index may be even more pertinent for pro football, if you consider those who can only make one or two games as an annual event," Greenberg said.

While NFL tickets generally are among the toughest tickets in town in places such as Washington, Green Bay, Chicago and New York - and the Bucs have announced season ticket sellouts for years - individual game tickets generally are available through brokers on the Internet and scalpers outside the stadiums.

Laws against ticket scalping were rescinded in Florida last year and relaxed across the country, so individual game tickets have become more readily available than ever.

Bucs tickets for the New Orleans Saints opener at Raymond James Stadium were available Wednesday through Ticketmaster for $75.

The Internet ticket sales vendor StubHub listed Bucs-Saints tickets for as low as $36 - not including the 10 percent service charge and additional shipping fees - and a dozen classified ads in The Tampa Tribune offered tickets with various prices and packages.

In New York, hundreds of people lined up Monday for a chance for a limited number of $450 "Young Frankenstein" tickets, along with a special lottery to get some tickets for $25.

But Broadway tickets have become a lot pricier than the days when Broadway Joe Namath was the sports competition in town.

Internet ticket brokers were asking $200 and up for the cheap seats of the Broadway remake of Mel Brooks' classic movie in its first few weeks. Even StubHub had no opening night tickets.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at tjackovics@tampatrib.com or (813) 159-7817.

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