The staff of Touchdown.org headed to beautiful Las Vegas for Super Bowl weekend, and despite having to come home early (before the game) it was a cool weekend to be in Vegas. The flight to Newark wasn’t as rowdy as we had expected, though it did have a large contingent of Giants fans. A number of fans we talked to were headed to the game - they couldn’t get flights to Arizona so they flew to Vegas and were driving the 5+ hours to Phoenix.

One fan we talked to found his tickets on Craigslist from a season ticket holder - $5,000 for 2 tickets 20 rows up at the 10 yard line. Stubhub has had a huge effect on the aftermarket, largely to the detriment of the ticket brokers. In the old days people with tickets would try to sell the tickets themselves or they would sell directly to the brokers. With so many brokers, it was tough to get good information - so the brokers had a better chance of buying low and selling high. But Stubhub changes everything - it lets the ticket owners sell their own tickets, and it lets them see what the market rate is. Why sell tickets to a broker for $1500 if he is going to sell them for $3,000, if you can sell them for $3,000 yourself through Stubhub? One problem Stubhub does have however is the time factor - they depend on Fedex to get the tickets to the location, so sellers are getting very antsy by Friday because they know they need to have them in the mail by Friday night for Saturday delivery.

Walking around Vegas Friday and Saturday there weren’t too many people wearing Patriots or Giants gear (this surprised us). What we did notice though was that a LOT of Pats fans were wearing Red Sox or generic Boston t-shirts and hats. A sort of low key “I’m from Boston” statement without wearing their 10 day old Wes Welker jersey. On Saturday afternoon the Wynn was 80% Pats fans (at least visibly).

From the cocktail waitress at the Wynn to the guy trying to sell us timeshares in front of Treasure Island - pretty much everyone we talked to wanted the Giants to win, but didn’t think they had much of a chance. Of the dozen or so people we talked to, only our 60 year old buffet waitress actually wanted the Patriots to win the game. And she obviously hadn’t heard of spygate.

It’s also amusing to watch an entire city celebrate and promote an event they aren’t allowed to mention. From what I understand, you are allowed to use the term Super Bowl when you are referring to the event - but you can’t use it in association with anything you are doing business-wise. So all the Super Bowl parties were really “Big Game Blowouts” and the high rollers weren’t “Super Bowl VIPs” they were “Gridiron Greats”. And the NFL last year tried to trademark “The Big Game”. Bastards.

Unfortunately we had to get on a plane at 8am Sunday morning and weren’t able to watch the game in Vegas - which was the whole point of going out there. If we’re not in Tampa next year we plan to be in Vegas…

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