Vendors sour over slow-moving Super Bowl suites

ByDarren Rovell ESPN logo
Saturday, February 20, 2016

The market may have bottomed out Friday morning for suites at Levi's Stadium for Super Bowl 50.

SuiteHop, a sports luxury box marketplace based in Denver, listed one suite for the game at $150,000. That's the lowest price site founder Todd Lindenbaum recalls seeing a Super Bowl suite sell for.

"The NFL and the Super Bowl host committee thought that they could sell out by selling suites for $500,000 to $1 million each," Lindenbaum said. "But at least for the ones still on the market, the pricing wasn't going to hold up."

The $150,000 suite, which includes 16 tickets, food and beverage, works out to $9,375 per person, which is cheaper than some club seats are going for.

Many suites did sell for high asking prices, given the wealth in Silicon Valley, but for the suites that were still available a week ago, there was no movement.

Robert Smith of Dallas-based Sold Out Sports recently acquired some suites for the game.

"The original pricing was probably right for most of the suites, but once you get down to the final 10 or so, where I think we are now, companies have to be incentivized by price to make a last-minute decision to send many people to the game," Smith said.

The $150,000 suite is the lowest price Smith said he has seen in his six years trading in Super Bowl suites.

"If we could sell what we have now for $150,000 a suite, I'd be damn happy about it," he said.

Smith said he wants to keep a couple of suites intact, but he already has broken up one suite and is selling individual tickets, including food and beverage, through StubHub.