Is There A Cheap Way To Go To Super Bowl 50?

After 17 weeks in the regular season and another three for the postseason, the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos finally know that they’ll meet each other at Super Bowl 50 in San Francisco. But as the players and coaches take the next two weeks to draw up game plans and squeeze in their last practices of the year, it’s arguable that Panthers fans, Broncos fans and casual football fans have a bigger dilemma on their hands: paying an arm and a leg to see their favorite teams in the biggest game of the season or stay home instead.

For the vast majority of fans, spending thousands on a single game isn’t feasible, but there are still plenty of diehards out there mulling the decision over at the moment. The question is, how much does it really cost to attend a Super Bowl if your team has to travel across the country just to get there? The final tally depends on so many factors — where fans buy tickets from, when they decide to fly out to the Bay Area, how many people they’re going with, etc. — but MarketWatch tabulated that the average cost for one traveler from Denver or Charlotte, North Carolina, after airfare, tickets, and lodging at a hotel or Airbnb would run about $7,300.

And that’s before fans earn the privilege of paying $10.25 for Levi’s Stadium’s least expensive beer.

“San Francisco is an incredibly wealthy market,” Chris Leyden, content analyst at online ticker resale marketplace SeatGeek, told the San Francisco Gate. “There are a lot of people with disposable incomes. There’s a lot of demand in the Bay Area.”

There’s plenty of demand, but there just might be too many options for the would-be Super Bowl-goer to review before he or she can feel comfortable about securing the best possible price for their fantasy football vacation. If super savvy consumers manage to finagle optimum outcomes from each interaction with ticket resellers, Airbnb owners and whoever else is trying to nickel and dime them during Super Bowl weekend, more power to them — but the Broncos, Panthers and global sports travel group PrimeSport see a profitable opportunity to cut down on the fragmentation in the market.

Shortly after wrapping up their victory over the New England Patriots on Sunday (Jan. 24), the Broncos announced that they had partnered with PrimeSport to offer officially licensed Super Bowl travel packages to Denver fans. Though the bundles aren’t exactly what the non-NFL fan would call “affordable,” the most expensive package at $7,065 per person saves a few hundred bucks compared to self-navigating the jungle of travel and hotel options.

“We are thrilled to once again be working with the Denver Broncos on their trip to Super Bowl 50,” a PrimeSport representative said in a statement. “Through our partnership, we are very excited to be able to offer loyal Broncos fans the PrimeSport VIP Experience and a reliable and official source for travel options to the Super Bowl.”

Carolina signed their own deal with PrimeSport to create a dynamic that’s become increasingly rare in recent years. Buying through officially sanctioned channels might actually save fans more money than cobbling a Super Bowl weekend itinerary together from flight aggregators, ticket resale sites and what lodging scraps the sharing economy leaves after. If these kinds of non-disruptor entities can sell the public on their most valuable commodity during the Super Bowl — reliability and peace of mind no matter what fans book — it could be a big blow to a paradigm shift that has seen customers develop a taste for hunting out their own deals.

Although, as David Solomito, North American brand director for KAYAK, explained, the market – no matter who it’s made of – favors the bold.

“If you’re on the fence about going to the Super Bowl — now’s the time to book,” Solomito told NBC News. “According to last year’s data, flight prices increased by more than 35 percent once the two Super Bowl teams were determined. So book now to score the best deal.”