Swifties will say that this NFL season is synonymous with Taylor Swift.
While it is difficult to truly tell what kind of impact the pop star has had on the season, heading into Super Bowl LVIII, one thing is for sure: football has gained many new viewers over the months.
With the Kansas City Chiefs set to take on the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, fans are banking on Swift in the Allegiant Stadium stands to cheer on her man, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
But how is her potential appearance impacting Super Bowl LVIII ticket sales? We spoke to an expert to find out.
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"The Super Bowl is its own element in itself as you can tell based on the current prices and the limited amount of tickets available," StubHub ticket expert Adam Budelli told NBC. "Certainly, during the season, once Taylor Swift attended her first game, over the next 24 hours we saw the largest spike in total sales for the Chiefs in any period of the season. So certainly her excitement level has drawn interest for the Chiefs across the regular season games."
After Swift’s appearance at the Chiefs-Bears game in September, StubHub representatives said they saw nearly a three-times increase in sales in a 24-hour window for Chiefs home games compared to each of the few days prior. Also, single-day website searches for the Chiefs on StubHub had increased by three times after the game.
But as far as Super Bowl ticket sales predictions, Budelli thinks the main impact will be on viewership levels.
"It may tend to be a little bit more on the viewership side, with some new younger viewers excited to see maybe a shot of Taylor in the stands," he said. "But hard to predict given the excitement of the Super Bowl and the number of people who want to support both fan bases if it is directly tied to her [Taylor Swift]."
According to a report from Marketwatch, Swift's impact on female viewership is a 53% increase among those aged 12-17, a 34% rise in those over 35 and 24% in the 18-24 demographic.
How much are Super Bowl LVIII tickets?
The cheapest ticket in the stadium is $6,839 for seats in the 400 level. The closer you get to the action, prices go well past $10,000 for a single ticket.
Where will this Super Bowl's ticket sales rank?
Super Bowl ticket sales are ramping up.
"All the metrics are showing this is going potentially to be one of the top-selling Super Bowls of all time," Budelli said.
With 3,100 tickets remaining as of Wednesday, Budelli said having the Big Game in Las Vegas, especially with its unique infrastructure, caters very well to visitors and their hotel accommodations.
Budelli says the game's ticket prices are still in line with what StubHub saw in previous Super Bowls including L.A. (2022), Miami (2020) and Minneapolis (2018).
Which fans are buying more tickets?
The 49ers certainly have an advantage when it comes to location, and the sales stats are backing that up.
Budelli said that since sales opened up for Super Bowl LVIII, more 49ers fans have been purchasing tickets. He said as of Wednesday, 38% of the total StubHub sales have come from the state of California compared to the Kansas City, Mo., area sitting at 10%.
