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Select A Ticket Press Releases

Have Super Bowl tickets? Brokers have lots of cash

Morris company aids those not going to Arizona

Unveiled Friday afternoon at the Meadowlands, the mobile, 195-square-foot billboard was created by a Riverdale-based ticket broker seeking New York Giant season ticket holders who won tickets in the Super Bowl XLII lottery.

Tehani Schneider, Daily Record, 2008-01-26

Unveiled Friday afternoon at the Meadowlands, the mobile, 195-square-foot billboard was created by a Riverdale-based ticket broker seeking New York Giant season ticket holders who won tickets in the Super Bowl XLII lottery.

Select A Ticket, headquartered on Route 23 South, is specifically looking for those lucky lottery winners who'd rather skip the trip to Glendale, Ariz., and watch the game at home and be a few thousand dollars richer.

"A lot of people didn't have time to make (hotel) reservations or buy plane tickets," said Select A Ticket owner Tom Patania, reflecting on the Giants' surprise postseason run that has led to a showdown with the undefeated New England Patriots.

Lottery winners who turned up at Giants Stadium on Friday afternoon to pick up their tickets encountered the giant advertisement, and Big Orange will be circling the East Rutherford complex today as well, said Michael Joliat, the company's director of marketing.

Select A Ticket has pulled out the stops to find ticket holders before, erecting billboards for college bowl games and for many past Super Bowls, company officials said. The vibe of this year's game, however, is different.

"The popularity of this year's venue coupled with the huge fan base that both the Giants and the Patriots command means demand will be unusually high," Joliat said. "That means a great pay-out for the ticket holders."

Since the Giants' improbable win over the Green Bay Packers last Sunday, Patania said many lottery winners have called the company to find out if they're buying tickets and how much they're willing to pay.

Some are reluctant to sell because their seat location is unknown, but the NFL usually allots upper level, corner end zone seats to its season ticket holders who win the lottery, he said.

Those tickets are $700 each, but Select A Ticket is currently buying them for $2,000, Patania said. He also said that the company's price will continue to fluctuate as Super Sunday draws closer.

"Earlier in the week, we were paying $2,500 per ticket," he said. "Every day, the market changes."

The company's current going rate seems like a bargain, compared to some of the prices hawked on the Web Friday at auction site eBay and fan ticket site StubHub.

Bids on eBay soared as high as $190,000 for an eight-person luxury suite, while StubHub offered tickets ranging from $2,450 to $18,500.

Sean Pate, a spokesman for StubHub, said the feeding frenzy for tickets to this year's Super Bowl is comparable to last year's rush but the story lines for this year's game are second to none.

With the Patriots seeking to finish their perfect season and the Giants' Cinderella story coupled with the New York-Boston rivalry, all the elements are in place to drive extensive demand, he said.

One Morris County resident who won two tickets to his first Super Bowl has no intention of selling.

"I'm going," Jim Rhead said emphatically on Friday afternoon. The Wharton resident and his wife, Connie, have booked a trip to Las Vegas and will make the six-hour drive to Glendale.

The 71-year-old man, who planned to pick up his tickets later in the day at Giants Stadium, said he received some offers from Giants fans desperate to go to the game, but turned them down.

They offered a couple of thousand dollars," said Rhead, who's been on the waiting list for 26 years. "This is the first chance I've had to go to one, and I'm going to take advantage."