Going to the Super Bowl from Australia
2024 update: As this post was originally published in 2019, some of the references are out of date. (Like the Patriots one coming up).
This time of year, after the team that will face the Patriots1 in the Super Bowl has been confirmed, many Aussies find themselves hypothetically planning their own trip to the Big Dance: What would it actually be like to go? How much would I end up spending? Flights and accommodation alone would be crazy, right? Is it even possible to get tickets to the Super Bowl?
Some people actually go through with it. In 2016, Wes Garth decided at half time of the AFC Championship game that “if the Broncos hold on to this lead and make it through, I’m going”. Quan Le started planning his 2017 visit two years early, when he saw that it was being held in Houston, where his sister lives. He ended up seeing what was arguably the greatest Super Bowl of all time. Our pal Sarah Juchima went to SB XLVIII in her capacity as a producer at Triple M, where she met a contest winner known as ‘The Juice’, and the rest is history.
Planning on going to the Super Bowl?
You can search through our tickets to Super Bowl LVIII here, but you should also email our Australian-based customer service team before booking so we can make sure you’re getting the best deal.
With Wes, Quan and Sarah’s stories in mind, we put together this planning guide for anyone who might actually be serious about making the trip from Australia to the Super Bowl:
Step 1: Look at future Super Bowl locations and dates
The NFL announces upcoming Super Bowl venues years in advance, and unlike other postseason formats, the dates get locked in early, too. This is great for trip planning – you’ve got a date and a location that you can stick a pin in and build the rest of your itinerary around.
Here are the upcoming Super Bowl venues that have been announced by the NFL:
| Year | City | Venue | Date |
| 2024 | Las Vegas | Allegiant Stadium | February 11th |
| 2025 | New Orleans | Caesar’s Superdome | February 9th |
| 2026 | San Francisco | Levi’s Stadium | February 8th |
| 2027 | Los Angeles | SoFi Stadium | February 14th |
Source: NFL.com
Step 2: Plan for flights and accommodation
Unless you also win a radio competition or you know Hutchy, the Super Bowl is going to be an expensive adventure for you. There’s really no way around this. Even if you methodically research the best time to buy tickets (more on this below), you’re still looking at thousands of dollars to get a ticket to the biggest sporting event in the world.
Therefore, if you can find ways to save money on other parts of your trip, it’s worth the hassle, right?
About flights
At the time of writing2, Skyscanner and WebJet have a return flights from Melbourne to Las Vegas priced at around AU$1500-$2000 total. The Hopper app rates the current price as “good”, and expects the cost to rise from here onwards3.
These prices would have fluctuated plenty over the last 12 months, so if you’re planning ahead (i.e. you’re more of a Quan than a Wes), you can save yourself some money.
Skyscanner AU once suggested that you can save up to 7% 4 on flights from Australia to the USA if you book 22 weeks prior. In the case of a Super Bowl trip, that means you’re booking around September. Hopper said that most of their ‘best price’ alerts for international flights are sent out on Thursdays and Fridays (Australian time)5 – but most people actually book on the weekends, when prices are generally higher.
✈️ Our tip:
Commit to going, then sign up to Skyscanner and/or the Hopper app’s price alerts and wait until you get notified of the best deal… and try to get this done before October/November6.
About accommodation
As a general rule, the sooner you can book your accommodation for the Super Bowl, the better. Sure, hotels around the world often have last-minute price drops in order to fill empty rooms, but that’s pretty unlikely at the Super Bowl. For example, in 2018, Minneapolis had a capacity of approximately 40,000 hotel rooms7 – around 20,000 of which were pre-booked for NFL staff – to cater for an expected 125,000 visitors coming to town for SBLII. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in accommodation prices skyrocketing8.
Most people going to the Super Bowl, though, try to book accommodation that is either walking distance to the stadium where the game is being held, or close to the airport, so this is where the prices are likely to be highest. You can probably save yourself some money if you put more than 25 minutes of driving between your accommodation and the host stadium.
🏨 Our tip:
Book accommodation early, put a little bit of distance between where you’re staying and the stadium, then figure out the journey to and from the game later. You won’t be the only one doing this.
Step 3: Get your tickets
Yes, you can get tickets. Prices will fluctuate based on demand, though, as they’re coming from the secondary ticket market. It’s important to note here that at Sports Where I Am we only work with accredited sellers and guarantee all of our tickets as genuine.
Here’s where Super Bowl tickets come from
One thing about Super Bowl tickets: No ‘face value’ tickets are sold directly from the NFL to the general public. The NFL does release some tickets in packages (i.e. combined with tickets to another associated event or accommodation) but these are also priced based on the same supply & demand influences as the secondary ticket market.
Rather than selling directly to the public, Super Bowl tickets are spread out across the teams and the league office to then decide how to allocate them.
This Boston.com article from 2018 approximated the following breakdown:
| Where tickets are allocated | % |
| The two participating teams get 17.5% of available tickets each | 35% |
| The ‘host’ team gets 5% | 5% |
| All other 29 teams get 1.2% each | 34.8% |
| The NFL league office gets 25.2% | 25.2% |
| Total | 100% |
All tickets for the Super Bowl contain authentication and security features (such as holograms and heat-sensitive ink on physical tickets). So even if you have mixed feelings about the secondary ticket market, the restricted nature of Super Bowl ticketing means you’ll be fine as long as you buy your ticket from a reliable source.
When is the best time to buy your Super Bowl tickets?
It’s difficult to confidently predict the best time to buy, as there are so many factors that can influence the price of tickets.
Some studies have been done on the fluctuation of prices in the final 20 days before the game9, where prices can jump up or down by a few hundred dollars in a given day. If you’re travelling from Australia and planning ahead, though, you’re probably hoping to have your ticket sorted before then. Like anything else, your best option is to shop around and keep an eye on prices 10.
If you’re checking throughout the year, you’ll see that the earliest tickets that become available are for ‘zones’, not for specific seats. This is where a seller will know that they have a ticket in a certain area of the venue, but the exact location hasn’t been confirmed by the NFL yet. At the time of writing, we don’t list ‘zoned’ seats at Sports Where I Am, as we prefer to wait until we can guarantee the specific spot. Most years, these tickets become available on our website and App around September or October.
In the past, tickets had to be collected in the city…
Quan was apprehensive about this part.
“I’ll be honest, this is the part I was most reluctant about. After speaking to the team at Sports Where I Am, I was confident booking through them, but collecting the tickets somewhere nearby in the city? It sounded strange.”
For a high-profile event like this, security and legitimacy of tickets is the highest priority. A lot of effort is put into making sure that there is only one copy of each individual ticket.
That’s why up until a few years ago, all tickets for the Super Bowl had to be collected from a nearby location in the lead-up to the event. Major ticket providers would set up a temporary base for this specific purpose, usually within a mile of the venue11 which you’d need to visit with photo identification in order to collect your tickets.
“Once I got there, it was fine, it was a professional setup and I collected my tickets, no worries. Adrian from SWIAM talked me through the whole thing, too, which helped”.
…but now, most tickets are Mobile Tickets.
The principle of ticket security and there being only one copy of a ticket has not changed, but the delivery method has. Now, the majority of Super Bowl tickets are delivered electronically via a mobile ticket transfer, just as they are for almost all major league events in the USA and Canada available on our site.
Each ticket platform has its quirks, but the peace of mind that comes from knowing your ticket is assigned to your mobile device is certainly worth the effort.
🎟️ Our tip:
Shop around a few different ticketing websites to check prices, then get in contact with us at Sports Where I Am when you’re ready to book, so we can make sure you’re getting the best offer available.
Step 4: Check what else is on
The festival atmosphere in the city will hit you as soon as you step off the plane. Quan described its immediate impact on his trip: One of his friends was not planning on going to the Super Bowl – he was happy to sit it out after already committing to a few NBA games on this trip. After arriving in Houston, though, he ultimately got caught up in the buzz of the city and sought out a last-minute ticket.
In terms of events, there is the NFL Super Bowl Experience, which Wes calls “a mash-up of interactive displays, a museum and a theme park of all things NFL… which you really must do”. The Super Bowl Opening Night, Super Bowl Pre-Game Party, and NFL Super Bowl Tailgate are some other official functions happening, not to mention the parties being thrown by bars and clubs as well as concerts across the city12.
Of course, if you haven’t got enough sport, other events on Sports Where I Am during the month of February include NBA, NHL, NCAA Basketball or NASCAR.
🗓️ Our tip:
Make some time in your itinerary to get involved in the NFL-related events and parties happening in the city, then contact the SWIAM team and ask for a discount on another sports event after you already splurged on Super Bowl tickets.
One last time: Contact us, we can help
Ticking off a bucket list item like this – which you’ll talk about for years to come – is a big commitment, especially for Australians. Sarah, Wes and Quan will tell you that it is absolutely worth it – but your starting point should be to get in contact with us via email or Facebook Messenger so we can assist with your planning.
Footnotes
- This was originally written in 2019.
- We updated this section in February of 2024 to be relevant to SBLVIII in Las Vegas just over a week from now. The original post was written in January of 2019.
- Says Wes: “It’s not too late to go, NFL fans! I implore you! Get your SB ticket through SWIAM and work the rest out, you will not regret it!”
- From Skyscanner AU: How far in advance to book cheap international flights?
- From Hopper: 10 Most Common Booking Mistakes
- Note: We’ve got no affiliation with Skyscanner, WebJet or Hopper.
- From Washington Post: Supply, Demand and the Super Bowl
- Says Quan: “In 2017, I saw an Airbnb listing for a 5 bedroom house a few miles from NRG Stadium priced at $72k for the week of the Super Bowl!”
- Google it, this article is long enough already.
- Note: The 2019 version of this article had a rule-of-thumb price range of “at least $3,500” here, which in 2024 is… nowhere near it, unfortunately.
- Sometimes, it’d be in a hotel.
- Wes’ daughter – who insisted he go through with his plan to rush off to the Super Bowl – still can’t believe that he has seen Beyoncé perform live and she hasn’t.
