Packers-Vikings tickets highest for Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS – For the second week in a row, the Green Bay Packers are the hottest ticket in town. In this case, the town is Minneapolis.
The average resale price for a Packers-Vikings ticket at new U.S. Bank Stadium is $424, according to SeatGeek. That is the highest-priced ticket for a Vikings home game since the ticket re-seller started tracking the secondary market in 2010. That also was true of last week's Packers-Jaguars game in Jacksonville.
The next highest price for games in Minneapolis is an average of $250 for Cowboys-Vikings on Dec. 1. The previous high was $198 for Packers-Vikings in 2010.
There is a lot riding on the match-up between NFC North rivals.
"Obviously, it's a big rivalry game. The Vikings won the division last year and the Packers are battling to get the division back," said Dennis Garrity of Event USA/Packer Fan Tours in Ashwaubenon. "All that chemistry goes into this. Then you have the overlay of a $1.1 billion stadium being inaugurated."
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Not to mention, Minneapolis is within easy driving distance of Green Bay and there are a lot of Packers fans in western Wisconsin and Minnesota who are even closer.
Prices fell from a median of $522 on Sept. 7 to $447 on Tuesday, according to SeatGeek. The game is the third-most-expensive regular-season NFL game this year, after two New England Patriots home games. It is not, however, the most expensive ticket for a Packers game. The game in Denver in 2015 had an average resale price of $525.
Upper-section seats were as low as $200 on Tuesday afternoon.
Cory Hooyman, a Packers fan living in Minneapolis, is biding his time, hoping tickets will come down more by Sunday. He said tickets on StubHub were $300 last month and the $230 last time he looked. He paid $90 to see the Packers and Vikings at TCF Bank Stadium last year.
"I may end up waiting to go to the same game next year, when it's not the very first game in the stadium," Hooyman said. "It looks like an awesome facility. Also, the Vikings have formed their way into a competitive team, so the game itself should be a good one."
Erik Norlund, another Packers fan living in Minneapolis, got a ticket from a friend who's a Vikings season-ticket holder for $200; otherwise, he expected to pay $350. In addition to a Packers victory, Norlund wants to see what his tax dollars paid for at U.S. Bank Stadium.
"The stadium looks vaguely like an HP printer that I bought in the late '90s and taints what is an otherwise beautiful Minneapolis skyline," he said.
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