Here's why Super Bowl tickets are so expensive this year

Those hoping to attend Super Bowl LVII on Sunday have likely been shocked by ticket prices in the thousands of dollars.

The Super Bowl is always a hot ticket, but a “perfect storm of factors” is driving tickets prices sky high, according to Reuters.

To start, the Los Angeles Rams are playing in their home stadium, and the team expects to see California fans filling most of the seats at the SoFi Stadium.

But Cincinnati Bengals fans are also fighting for seats in the team’s first Super Bowl appearance in 33 years – and potentially, their first win.

This is also the first Super Bowl in two years to not have restricted attendance. Last year’s game in Florida was capped at 22,000 socially-distanced fans, but all of SoFi Stadium’s 100,000 seats are up for sale this year.

More availability tends to bring prices down but excitement about a “return to normalcy” may have offset this.

The cheapest Super Bowl seats on the online ticket marketplace StubHub dipped just below $4,000 on Wednesday, while the average sale price floated around $6,500.

"At the end of the day, that is just a reflection of supply and demand. There are only so many seats that are available for the Super Bowl. And the demand for a game like this is so astronomically high," Akshay Khanna, North American general manager for StubHub, told Reuters.

Some buyers have been reportedly struck with sticker shock, with many declaring they would stay home or find a bar to watch if prices remained too high.