Devoted fans will do anything to watch their favorite NFL teams on the biggest stage in the world if they're so fortunate and skilled to make it all the way to the Super Bowl. I was studying abroad in Florence, Italy, when my Eagles had a miraculous run to the Super Bowl, and some friends I had on the trip bought (not-cheap) tickets home so that they could watch with family, attend the parade should the Birds have won and then fly right back to resume our incredible experience. I wasn't about to do that, but hey, I'm pretty cheap. Watching at the sole American-ish bar in the city that was airing the game at around 3:00 a.m. was good enough for me.
The point of that little story, again, is that devoted fans will go to extreme lengths in order to watch their favorite team in the Super Bowl, even if it's just at home, with family and friends, in the city from which that team hails. But when you're talking about actually attending the Super Bowl, you're going to have to pay up just a little bit more.
Take Albert Silverman, for instance, who was profiled by Christopher Spata in a recent story by The Tampa Bay Times. He's single, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is self-described as someone who "[doesn't] exactly have the most money in the world." But he's also heading to Raymond James Stadium for Super Bowl LV to watch his beloved Bucs compete against the Chiefs. And he's spending $21,000 on a pair of tickets to do so, which he says is "like 40 percent of my yearly salary after taxes."
A pair of tickets? Who is he bringing along with him? That's still an issue.
"I'm single, so I might get to Tampa and try to find a girl and be like, 'hey, want to go to the Super Bowl'," Silverman said.
I applaud his audacity, and, I have to admit, that's a pretty solid way to meet your future partner, though it might not be so easy to pull this off considering there's a worldwide pandemic continually raging.
If he can't find someone to use the ticket, he's considering it a $23,000 trip to Tampa for a single football game that's a priceless, once-in-a-lifetime experience, and he's not wrong about that. He might want to find a way to hedge his Super Bowl purchase, though, just in case he doesn't get to see his Buccaneers bring home a ring.
Maybe he should take the advice of another fan mentioned in the Times, Boston's Jake Duhaime, who will watch Tom Brady in the Super Bowl, live, for the ninth time in his life. He also spent a massive amount on the tickets, but he's going to bet heavily on the Chiefs so that he can make some money back in the event that Brady loses his fourth Super Bowl.
But if Brady ends up winning ring No. 7, what does Duhaime care about the extra money placed on the bet?
“If you were a Bulls fan and bought a ticket for Game 6 of the 1998 NBA finals when Jordan hit that shot against Utah, are you still thinking about what you paid for a ticket now?,” Duhaime said. “Of course not. You wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
Seems like sound logic to me.
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