Packers playoff tickets on sale Dec. 5; Vikings tickets skyrocket
Richard Ryman
GREEN BAY – Green Bay Packers playoff tickets not claimed by season ticket holders will go on sale Dec. 5.
Tickets will be available for a possible wild card game on Jan. 4 or 5 or a divisional round playoff game on Jan. 11 or 12. Prices range from $120 to $168.
Playoff tickets can be purchased online only at Ticketmaster, up to a limit of eight, beginning at 10 a.m. Central Standard Time Dec. 5. If the Packers do not host a home playoff game, money will be refunded.
Of course, many of those tickets will make their way to other secondary market sellers, but those purchased Dec. 5 from Ticketmaster will be at face value.
Whether the Packers make the playoffs remains to be seen, but at 8-3 and with a relatively friendly schedule remaining, the odds are good.
The least-friendly game of the Packers' remaining five will be against the Vikings on Dec. 23 in Minnesota. The Packers and Vikings are tied for the NFC North division lead and secondary market reaction reflects the potential importance of that game. The average lowest ticket price on Tuesday was $308, an increase of $43 since last week.
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The Packers resume their playoff run Sunday when they play the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. It likely will have one of the lowest showing of Wisconsin Packers fans for the season, coming as it does after Thanksgiving and on the final weekend of Wisconsin deer season.
At SeatGeek, only 2% of shoppers for tickets to that game have been from Wisconsin. While Packers fans from across the eastern half of the country might attend the game, Wisconsin fans, it seems, are largely staying home.
Vivid Seats predicts that 13% of fans at Sunday's game will be Packers fans, which is about normal for NFL games, but low for Packers games. Vivid Seats' Fan Forecast utilizes various data, including proprietary sales information, to project the makeup of the crowd.
The average lowest ticket price for the Giants game was $90 on Tuesday.
By contrast, 9% of tickets buyers for the Vikings game are from Wisconsin, as are 5% for the Dec. 29 game against the Lions in Detroit. The latter shows a bit of an uptick in interest for the regular season's last game.
The Packers return to Lambeau Field for the first time in a month on Dec. 8, when they take on Washington. Demand for that game has been tepid all year and remains so. The average lowest cost is $93, which is $18 less than face value for the cheapest seats and $10 less than last week's average. And, as Bill Wenzel of Green Bay Ticket Service points out, prices are likely to drop even more as the game nears.
The Chicago Bears game on Dec. 15, the last regular-season home game for the Packers, not only retained its value, but ticked up $6 per ticket during the last week.The 5-6 Bears are not the contending team of last year, when they won the NFC North, but it's still Bears-Packers, which has a value of its own.
As has been mentioned here numerous times, Packers fans do not as a rule queue up to go to Detroit, but the possibility that Green Bay's playoff hopes could hinge on that Dec. 29 game might be affecting prices, which were $9 higher for the average lowest price since last week, to $74.
Ticket buyers should always be mindful of where they are buying tickets.
A Packers fan who had luck with Craigslist in the past reported he was ripped off by a seller recently and had no recourse to recovering his money. Secondary market sellers who guarantee their transactions are a better bet, especially when playoff tickets become available and the fraud artists get more active.
For our weekly look at Packers' tickets prices, we average the lowest ticket prices at eight secondary-market websites: Event USA, Green Bay Ticket Service, NFL Exchange, StubHub, TickPick, Ticket King, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats. Note that ticket brokers can add fees on top of prices listed here, so actual costs might be higher.
Dec. 1, noon, New York Giant, MetLife Stadium, Fox
- Face-price range (not including premium seating): N/A
- Average lowest-cost seat: $90
- Range of lowest-cost seat: $79-$116
Dec. 8, noon, Washington Redskins, Lambeau Field, Fox
- Face-price range (not including premium seating): $111-$142
- Average lowest-cost seat: $93
- Range of lowest-cost seat: $78-$102
- Standing room only: $85
Dec. 15, noon, Chicago Bears, Lambeau Field, Fox
- Face-price range (not including premium seating): $111-$142
- Average lowest-cost seat: $187
- Range of lowest-cost seat: $1590-$209
- Standing room only: $85
Dec. 23, 7:15 p.m., Minnesota Vikings, U.S. Bank Stadium, Monday Night Football, ESPN
- Face-price range (not including premium seating): N/A
- Average lowest-cost seat: $308
- Range of lowest-cost seat: $266-352
Dec. 29, noon, Detroit Lions, Ford Field, Fox
- Face-price range (not including premium seating): N/A
- Average lowest-cost seat: $74
- Range of lowest-cost seat: $59-$89
Contact Richard Ryman at (920) 431-8342 or rryman@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RichRymanPG, on Instagram at @rrymanPG or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RichardRymanPG/