Ticketgate a black eye for NFL at Super Bowl XLV

For 400 football fans, Sunday’s big game was less of an opportunity to see the Super Bowl up-close and personal, and more of a long-term financial investment.

Approximately 1,250 ticketholders were forced to relocate or watch a live feed of the game at Cowboys Stadium due to temporary seating and railings that were deemed unsafe by the Dallas fire marshall just hours prior to game time. Those fans experienced a great deal of confusion, and that confusion was subsequently compounded by the fact that league officials had an idea that the seats wouldn’t be available more than a week before kick-off. 

“We made a judgment that it was the right course of action to bring the fans in, rather than to discourage them or create a sense that they wouldn’t have the information necessary,´ said Eric Grubman, the NFL’s executive vice president of business ventures.

Of the 1,250 displaced fans,  800 were relocated to different seats and refunded the full amount of their tickets – between $800 and $900. Another 400 or so were directed to televisions around the stadium for their viewing enjoyment, further fueling ire over the seating snafu. That’s when the NFL intervened, ensuring the seatless fans a Super Bowl experience unlike anyone else’s – other than the press or members of the opposing teams.

League officials allowed the ticketholding fans who had to watch the game on TV onto the field during the Packers’ postgame celebration. Not only that, but the league refunded their full ticket prices three times over, putting an additional $2,400 in each fan’s pocket, while simultaneously giving them seats to next year’s Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

“It’s like getting bumped from a flight, but then getting four first-class tickets to Paris,´ said Tony Kornheiser, host of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption. “If their team isn’t in the game next year, they can sell each ticket for $5,000, so do I feel sorry for them? The answer is no.”

But John Muzarek and his father, two Steelers fans at the stadium forced to watch the game on TV, don’t sound like they’re buying Kornheiser’s argument.

“It wasn’t about the money,” Mazurek said. “It was about the experience.”

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