Did you think getting into Kilroy’s was difficult?
Try picking up tickets for Super Bowl 50.
Despite being held in the center of Silicon Valley, home to the highest-tech industry in the United States, the only way to enter Levi Stadium this Sunday was with a paper ticket.
Without giving fans a PDF option, the NFL maintains an environment of exclusivity and security while successfully pulling off a marketing ploy.
These tickets are another way for the NFL to build the hype around the Super Bowl.
The Wall Street Journal reported that StubHub had armored cars transport the tickets staffed with gunmen “packing heat.”
The tickets were held in a safe, the location of which only four StubHub employees knew.
While the tickets are a precious commodity, treating them with such reverence fits more among HBO dramas than ESPN highlights.
More than just a piece of paper, these tickets are a marriage of science and art.
They are printed with heat sensitive ink, which disappears when held, and black light activated symbols which reveal a football and 50 on the back.
They are printed on thick, glossy paper, embossed with golden text.
The Super Bowl is known for extraordinary showmanship.
A 30 second advertisement costing as much as $5 million according to a Forbes article.
The tickets themselves had a face value ranging from $500 to $3000.
But CNNMoney had the average resell price hovered around $4,630 just before kickoff.
This cost is on top of airfare and hotel accommodations for all the out of town fans flying in from Charlotte, North Carolina, Denver and around the country.
The absence of an electronic option separates the Super Bowl from other NFL games.
During the regular season, Levi Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers, only sells electronic tickets.
Yet, when hosting the Super Bowl, sellers flew as far as 1,600 miles to pick up their tickets, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
These kind of extreme lengths match the grandeur of the rest of the event.
No other football game has boasted Beyonce, Coldplay and Bruno Mars in the same 15 minute break.
The tickets have been elevated to heights to match the rest of the event.
No printed piece of paper would do the Super Bowl justice.
Despite the inconvenience of going into the Great America amusement park near the stadium to pick up tickets, no one would prefer to frame a black and white bar code.
With all the bells and whistles, each spectator will walk home with a bit of the pomp and circumstance in their pocket.
wkiepura@indiana.edu
@wkiepura
