Tickets to the first national football championship in 1967 cost $10. Today’s would cover a mortgage payment — or even a down payment.
Hardcore football fans hoping to snag tickets to The Big Game expect to pay thousands of dollars for a single seat — and in some cases, many multiples of what home buyers would pay every month to put a roof over their heads.
We wondered just how much mortgage a football championship ticket could buy, so we took a look at home costs in 50 of the U.S.’s largest metros and compared them to the least expensive seat in a nosebleed section of New Orleans’s Superdome. We found that The Big Game ticket price would exceed the cost of a typical mortgage payment for home buyers in 46 of the nation’s 50 largest U.S. metros.
And that’s just for a single ticket listed for sale before the division playoffs determined who would be playing. Take a companion, and tickets could run you the equivalent of a hefty down payment in some real estate markets.
Take, for instance, the two $52,000-per-person seats that were listed for sale on StubHub in mid-January. The pair of front-row seats on the 40-yard line would give you an up-close view of the bench and the half-time spectacle. But in housing terms, the price is enough to cover a 20% down payment on a $510,000 home — or four years’ worth of mortgage payments for the typical home buyer in Pittsburgh.*
To get an idea of how game day tickets compare to housing costs in the 50 largest U.S. metros, we took the least expensive ticket available on January 22, and compared it to the typical mortgage payment in those metros.
The result: A $4,800 ticket — the cheapest advertised on four resale sites — is the equivalent of nearly one mortgage payment in San Diego, the nation’s fourth most expensive market. It would cover 4.5 mortgage payments in Pittsburgh, the least expensive U.S. market.
Buy a ticket for a companion, and the typical home buyer in San Jose would be paying the equivalent of one month’s mortgage payment to see the game, while their counterpart in Pittsburgh would lay out almost nine months’ worth of home payments.
Of course, for long-suffering fans, the sky-high ticket prices could be worth it. One Los Angeles Rams super fan told a local CBS station in Los Angeles that he sold his house so that he could buy seats on the 50-yard line for him and his brother in 2022. Cost for the stadium seat license, which gave him the right to buy the tickets: a whopping $100,000 each, which would take care of a mortgage for many years, even in LA.
If you’ve decided to save for a down payment on a home instead of a seat at the big game, Zillow Home Loan’s BuyAbility℠ tool can help you figure out your budget and stay on track as your financial picture and mortgage interest rates change. Then, when you’re ready, you’ll be able to watch the game in high def in your new living room.
See the full list of cities below:
| Metro | Typical monthly mortgage payment with 20% down payment (Dec. 2024) | Number of payments for a typical $4,800 ticket | Number of payments if you’re buying two $4,800 tickets |
| Pittsburgh, PA | $1,075 | 4.5 | 8.9 |
| Cleveland, OH | $1,175 | 4.1 | 8.2 |
| Oklahoma City, OK | $1,190 | 4.0 | 8.1 |
| Memphis, TN | $1,200 | 4.0 | 8.0 |
| New Orleans, LA | $1,203 | 4.0 | 8.0 |
| Birmingham, AL | $1,275 | 3.8 | 7.5 |
| Detroit, MI | $1,281 | 3.7 | 7.5 |
| St. Louis, MO | $1,296 | 3.7 | 7.4 |
| Louisville, KY | $1,325 | 3.6 | 7.2 |
| Buffalo, NY | $1,335 | 3.6 | 7.2 |
| Indianapolis, IN | $1,424 | 3.4 | 6.7 |
| San Antonio, TX | $1,451 | 3.3 | 6.6 |
| Cincinnati, OH | $1,458 | 3.3 | 6.6 |
| Kansas City, MO | $1,544 | 3.1 | 6.2 |
| Houston, TX | $1,584 | 3.0 | 6.1 |
| Columbus, OH | $1,608 | 3.0 | 6.0 |
| Chicago, IL | $1,660 | 2.9 | 5.8 |
| Milwaukee, WI | $1,770 | 2.7 | 5.4 |
| Virginia Beach, VA | $1,806 | 2.7 | 5.3 |
| Jacksonville, FL | $1,811 | 2.7 | 5.3 |
| Philadelphia, PA | $1,871 | 2.6 | 5.1 |
| Hartford, CT | $1,871 | 2.6 | 5.1 |
| Minneapolis, MN | $1,898 | 2.5 | 5.1 |
| Dallas, TX | $1,905 | 2.5 | 5.0 |
| Richmond, VA | $1,906 | 2.5 | 5.0 |
| Tampa, FL | $1,910 | 2.5 | 5.0 |
| Charlotte, NC | $1,951 | 2.5 | 4.9 |
| Atlanta, GA | $1,953 | 2.5 | 4.9 |
| Baltimore, MD | $1,995 | 2.4 | 4.8 |
| Orlando, FL | $2,017 | 2.4 | 4.8 |
| Las Vegas, NV | $2,215 | 2.2 | 4.3 |
| Nashville, TN | $2,253 | 2.1 | 4.3 |
| Raleigh, NC | $2,270 | 2.1 | 4.2 |
| Austin, TX | $2,292 | 2.1 | 4.2 |
| Phoenix, AZ | $2,341 | 2.1 | 4.1 |
| Providence, RI | $2,494 | 1.9 | 3.8 |
| Miami, FL | $2,517 | 1.9 | 3.8 |
| Portland, OR | $2,798 | 1.7 | 3.4 |
| Salt Lake City, UT | $2,811 | 1.7 | 3.4 |
| Washington, DC | $2,938 | 1.6 | 3.3 |
| Sacramento, CA | $2,969 | 1.6 | 3.2 |
| Denver, CO | $2,990 | 1.6 | 3.2 |
| Riverside, CA | $3,013 | 1.6 | 3.2 |
| New York, NY | $3,500 | 1.4 | 2.7 |
| Boston, MA | $3,565 | 1.3 | 2.7 |
| Seattle, WA | $3,807 | 1.3 | 2.5 |
| San Diego, CA | $4,835 | 1.0 | 2.0 |
| Los Angeles, CA | $4,911 | 1.0 | 2.0 |
| San Francisco, CA | $5,858 | 0.8 | 1.6 |
| San Jose, CA | $8,205 | 0.6 | 1.2 |
*As of December 31, 2024. Assumes homeowner put 20% down