Super Bowl News - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Demand for tickets, lodging promises to be Super

Monday, January 23, 2006

By Chico Harlan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Super Bowl, as a part of its annual trick, places fans of its two participating teams at a decision-making crossroads, whereupon potential ticket buyers must ask themselves two questions.

Do I want to go? And, do I want to go insane?

The Steelers, by virtue of their victory yesterday in the AFC

championship, will play in the Super Bowl Feb. 5 at Detroit's 65,000-seat Ford Field. To earn a place in that game, the Steelers won seven consecutive games -- including three playoff contests on the road -- but for fans now hoping to watch them play for the championship, the journey to Detroit might even be harder.

Like their NFC opponent, the Seattle Seahawks, the Steelers were presented by the NFL with 17.5 percent -- or roughly 11,000 -- of the available Super Bowl tickets, listed with face values of either $600 or $700. The Steelers then conducted a lottery, designating those seats to corporate suite holders and season-ticket holders. "It was totally random," Steelers communications coordinator Dave Lockett said.

Steelers fans who earned Super Bowl tickets via the lottery likely learned by mail over the weekend, Lockett said Friday.

Fans not included in that select percentage must search elsewhere for tickets. Problem is, the pie of seats is cut into predetermined pieces: the host team, the Detroit Lions, already has divided up its allotted 5 percent. (In the process, the Lions drew publicized criticism from longtime season-ticket holders upset about the slight.) After tickets are given to the two participating teams and the host team, every other NFL franchise receives 1.2 percent of Ford Field's tickets. The NFL retains 25.2 percent.

"We provide the teams with their tickets, and then it's up to the club in deciding what to do with them," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

According to most published reports, about one of every six Super Bowl XL tickets will surface on the open market, almost all of them with XXL prices. On StubHub.com, an Internet site offering a forum for secure ticket transactions, one individual offered a luxury suite on the 40-yard line for $264,713. Two upper-deck tickets on the same Web site were offered before the weekend for just more than $2,000.

The Steelers' advancement to the Super Bowl, though, figures to slightly raise the demand for tickets, said Nick Giammusso, president of VIP Seats, Inc., which is offering travel-and-ticket packages starting at $2,975. Less than 300 miles separate Pittsburgh and Detroit, a proximity that will likely prompt more Steelers fans to attempt the trip. Detroit expects 100,000 visitors in town during Super Bowl weekend, and most of its 32,000 hotel rooms are gone. "For this event, we have to go out further -- anything within an hour's drive," said Carolyn Artman of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Giammusso added: "People think, 'Who the hell is going to want to go to Detroit?' But when you consider the supply of tickets is diminished, and when you consider Pittsburgh is so drivable, there will be a lot less [availability] than people imagine."