Watching my team win was awesome and unforgettable.
As someone who’s not into cars or bling, and is a “cheap ass mofo” (not minimalist), I decided recently to focus more on experiential expenditures rather than material ones. This has actually been tough for me, because I love investing and saving my money. It’s like an obsession. I save about 60% of my income. In a former life, I must have been one of those guys riding the trains during the Great Depression looking for work, because I never feel like I’ll have enough. Growing up dirt poor doesn’t help things either.
I’m trying to fix my “deprivation mentality” when it comes to money. That doesn’t mean becoming a spendthrift. It just means not being such an irrational tight wad. As much as possible anyway.
Last year I traveled to Thailand and the Philippines. The year before that I did a solo flight experience in a Cessna plane. I’d still like to take pilot lessons one day and get my private license, but I’m just not ready to commit the time and money to see it through properly. I go on regular road trips around the U.S. I have a generous work schedule, which gives me plenty of time off to do what I want. As a single guy with no kids, I also have tons of freedom. So, there’s really no reason not to get out there and see the world and “do stuff.” I have a tendency towards homebodyism. I’m trying to fix that, too. I am a writer, afterall. We’re prone to not wanting to go outside unless forced.
Fly, Eagles, Fly
Anyway, going to a Super Bowl has always been a dream of mine. I never watched football much growing up. In fact, the first game I ever watched was Super Bowl XXXV, between the Baltimore Ravens and the New York Giants, which was a boring blowout win for the Ravens. But next year saw the powerhouse St. Louis Rams against the New England Patriots, where Tom Brady won his first of many Super Bowls in a shocking upset, and I was hooked.
I’ve been an Eagles fan since birth. I grew up mainly in Eastern Pennsylvania. For a number of years I lived in Philadelphia, before moving out to the frozen wasteland of North Dakota. I’ve been a fan since the Eagles were a lowly doormat of a franchise that was still the only team in its divison to have not won a Super Bowl. I was there during the exciting but frustrating Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid years in the 2000s. I was there for the Michael Vick blip. I was there during the catastrophic Chip Kelly and Sam Bradford years. I was there, of course, for my team’s first epic win after the 2017 season in a rematch against the Patriots (whom we’d lost to in Super Bowl XXXIX 21–24). I was also there for the heartbreak two years ago when we fell short against the Kansas City Chiefs 35–38.
When the Eagles headed back to the Big Game this January, I finally had the opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams. I’d considered going before, but the high prices for Super Bowl tickets, in addition to travel and lodging costs, had put me off. But this time, things aligned much better. I was off the weekend of the Super Bowl anyway. Finally, I had the time, the money, and certainly the interest.
StubHub Snafu
Since I’m not usually one to go to big concerts and other events, I wasn’t used to buying tickets on big reseller websites. And here is where I ran into a little snag. I paid for a ticket in section 649, Row 16, Seat #1. Except after the transaction went through, I wound up with Row 8, Seat #19. It was in the same section, and technically it was an “upgrade,” as the row was closer. But part of the reason I had chosen this ticket was because it was for a seat right by the aisle. Alarmed at this sudden switch, I Googled to see if this sort of thing had happened before. Turns out, this is kind of common. Evidently, people will resell their tickets through a site like StubHub, and either misrepresent the actual seats they have, or they don’t technically have the ticket yet as they bought it from somewhere else.
I considered calling up StubHub and investigating/complaining. Another Google search revealed that this, too, had questionable and unfruitful results. Stubhub doesn’t like to give refunds, just “upgrades.” So, for anyone out there looking to buy tickets, beware of B.S. like this. It’s annoying and somewhat fraudulent. Even though it worked out in my favor with a better seat, that doesn’t excuse the fact that I didn’t get what I technically paid for. I jumped at this ticket to get a seat by the aisle. That was the main attraction. I could have easily waited.
A Word On Super Bowl Ticket Prices
Look, there are a lot of other things you could buy instead of Super Bowl tickets. You could buy a decent used Rolex watch. A nice two-week vacation overseas. A whole new wardrobe, including a bunch of NFL apparel. Or even a diamond engagement ring.
However, if you’re planning on going to a Super Bowl, I recommend you wait at least a week before the event to buy tickets. When tickets first became available after the Conference Championship games, the cheapest tickets I saw started at around $5,000.
That’s $5K BEFORE fees and taxes. Depending on which reseller website you go to, you might pay as much as $1,400 for “fees” (whatever those are) and another $400 or so for taxes. But if you wait at least a week to buy, prices tend to drop by a lot. By the following Sunday before the game, I saw tickets going for as “cheap” as $3,200 plus fees and taxes. All-in pricing was about $4,500. As late as Saturday before the game, the cheapest tickets I saw were about $2,500. Tickets this year were actually cheaper than last year due to the fact that it was a rematch, as well as Chiefs fatigue. But that doesn’t mean prices won’t skyrocket higher next year. Prices also depend on the venue and location. New Orleans is a cheaper city than, say, Los Angeles, or Las Vegas, where the Super Bowl was held last year.
All-in my ticket cost about $4,800, though I could have gotten it cheaper by as much as $1,000 for a comparable seat had I waited until a little longer to buy rather than only one week before the game.
Note: The cheapest place I saw tickets was at Vividseats.com. I checked out all the big sites; Ticketmaster, StubHub, SeatGeek, TickPick, etc. I went with the one at StubHub due to wanting an aisle seat, though that didn’t exactly work out for me.
2nd Note: The NFL uses Ticketmaster exclusively to manage tickets. This means that even if you buy from another place, you need to have an account at Ticketmaster in order to claim your ticket and use it the day of the game. All tickets are handled via mobile, of course, which you can download to an Apple or Google wallet. It’s pretty easy, actually.
In the end, I enjoyed the view from my seat. I actually think you see better from the Terrace level than on the field level.
The Game
I flew out from North Dakota on Saturday. My earlier research had shown that it was ridiculously expensive to stay in New Orleans for the weekend. Luckily, there was a much better alternative. Baton Rouge. I flew in there instead, and stayed at a hotel near the airport. The day of the game I took a bus into New Orleans, which stopped right by the Caesars Superdome. This plan was deemed “very smart” by numerous Uber drivers I encountered who inquired what brought me to Louisiana. It was practically essential. Hotels were charging thousands PER NIGHT that weekend. My hotel in Baton Rouge had regular pricing. The bus ticket only cost $75 round trip.
As you can imagine there is tons of security around a big event like this. I saw a lot of state police in military gear, carrying machine guns and such. There were drones hovering overhead. Helicopters buzzing past. I’d heard just a a few days before the game that President Trump was going to be attending, so you know there were Secret Service and other security out in full force.
Mainly, I was on the lookout for celebrities in the wild. I didn’t see any, except whatever the stadium showed on the big screens during the game.
Getting in was pretty easy. The Superdome had a bunch of ticket kiosks. After passing through security and metal detectors, all I had to do was scan my ticket just like at any other show or event like this. Then I was in.
There were two big tailgating places just outside the dome for either team, though you needed a special pass for these areas. I rarely drink anyway, so that was no appeal to me. They were several bands set-up on stages warming up the crowd.
On one side of the stadium there was a glass display set up showing every Super Bowl ring ever made. Another display across from it showed the Lombardi Trophy. I checked out the rings, but didn’t have time for the trophy before deciding to go inside. Besides, I was more interested in seeing the Lombardi on the field later that night.
Crowd noise is always spectactular at these big stadiums. But it’s something else with Eagles fans, I can tell you. We are a passionate fan base. I think we outnumbered the Chiefs fans by 60/40, and our energy only continued increasing as the game proceeded.
I was not familiar with any of the musical acts for the National Anthem or the Halftime Show. Though I’d heard rumblings of some kind of spat between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, with Lamar maing a “diss track,” or something. I don’t know any of the details. I grew up in the ’90s when rappers settled disputes by just shooting each other, so this musical tit-for-tat seemed lame and tame in comparison to me. Why would a grown man care that another man wrote poetry about him? I hate rap anyway, and don’t consider it real music, or even a performance. It’s more like a guy talking up on stage with a beat. Like slam poetry. You might as well just have a podcast up there. I missed most of Lamar’s “controversial” halftime show anyway. I decided to get a hotdog instead. I went to Super Bowl LIX for the game, not some overrated musical act.
And how was the game itself? Fucking amazing. We beat the shit out of the Chiefs. What’s not to love about that? This was the kind of Super Bowl win dreams are made of. My Eagles blew out the Chiefs 40–6 by the midpoint of the fourth quarter, before pulling starters and letting Mahomes and company save some face with a few gimme touchdowns to make the final score 40–22. It was domination from start to finish. It was quite cathartic for several reasons. It avenged our loss from two years ago to the Chiefs. A game that ended on a ticky tack phantom holding call against us that handed the title to Kansas City. It ended the Chiefs attempt at a threepeat, or “Chiefspeat” or whatever the hell they wanted to call it. It quieted the doubters on our QB Jalen Hurts, who won MVP. It gave our franchise its second Lombardi Trophy, and fifth NFL title overall. The Eagles won three NFL Championships prior to the Super Bowl. Plus, it allowed our superstar running back Saquon Barkley to break the all-time season rushing record including playoffs. Everything about Super Bowl LIX was absolutely awesome in every way imaginable.
Final Thoughts
As much I loved going to the Super Bowl, I’m not sure I’d ever go again, even if the Eagles were in it, unless I really had the money to burn. It’s kind of a once in a lifetime thing. It’s expensive to go, obviously, and there are a lot of other better, and more interesting ways to spend that kind of money. I’ve been fortunate over the last few years financially, and this was a way of taking advantage. Watching my team win the Super Bowl in person will always be a great memory of mine. It was really something else to hear the E-A-G-L-E-S cheer as the green and white confetti rained down on the field. Even though I think the Eagles are well positiond to compete in the playoffs for years to come, there are no guarantees in the NFL. They could make it back to the Big Game next year or never again in my lifetime. Getting to a Super Bowl is hard enough on its own, much less winning one. I had a good feeling about this one, and I didn’t want to miss my chance to see it this time.
The Super Bowl has become a huge part of America culture. It’s almost like a holiday anymore. So, it was worthwhile to experience it from that perspective also. I would recommend anyone go at least once if they can.
Dean Brooks 