The last time Baltimore hosted an AFC championship football game, Richard Nixon was president, the Colts were still in Charm City and a gallon of gas cost 36 cents.
Can a Ravens fan really afford to miss Sunday’s game? Emotionally speaking, maybe not. Financially speaking, definitely yes.
As of Friday afternoon, the cheapest seats on ticket-resale platforms such as SeatGeek and Ticketmaster were about $730 (which includes a $180 service fee).
Those are the tickets in the upper deck. If you want to see the game up close — and hear the crunch of players colliding at top speed — you’ll need to pony up. A family of four could watch the game from the sixth row near midfield for $12,213.24. That’s more than it would cost for that family of four to fly to London this weekend.
In fact, they could take a redeye flight from Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Friday night, visit Big Ben Saturday, book a room on the south bank of the Thames River, fly back to Baltimore on Sunday, watch the game on the flight and arrive home that evening to catch the end of any victory celebrations for less than $6,000.
Or, if that family is afraid of flying but still wants a taste of the U.K., they could buy a used 2011 MINI Cooper for under $12,000.
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Or they could go to Best Buy and purchase six 100-inch TVs to watch the AFC championship game.
The best bet for reasonably priced Ravens tickets may be moments before kickoff at 3 p.m. Sunday.
The NPR economics podcast “Planet Money” devoted an episode to ticket-resale platforms — and how those online marketplaces affect ticket pricing — in 2022. The podcast found that ticket prices plummeted in the moments leading up to the start of professional sports events. That’s because some fans can’t make the game for a variety of reasons, but they’ll still want to recoup some money for their ticket.
So, if your heart is set on being one of the 71,000 or so fans cheering in the stands of M&T Bank Stadium ― or if you lost your passport — you could try waiting until 2:59 p.m. Sunday to buy your ticket.
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