$1,000 for Super Bowl tickets (and a secret)

So the NFL isn't exactly helping out the poor Joe the Plumbers of the world with this announcement: The official price of Super Bowl tickets will reach $1,000 for the first time this season.

According to this story, the NFL confirmed Thursday that 25 percent of the tickets for Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa will be priced at $1,000. Tickets for last year's game between New England and the New York Giants were $700 and $900. (And the ones that got resold last year went for an average of $4,300, according to online reseller StubHub).

Overall, the official price for 17,000 suite and club seats will be $1,000 each. Another 53,000 tickets will go for $800, with the remaining 1,000 at $500. So the "cheap seats" are $500 -- of course, you do get a tiny Bruce Springsteen concert at halftime with that. If you're longing for the good ol' days, the first Super Bowl charged $6, $10 and $12 for tickets.

If the 4-2 Panthers make it, in other words, and you're intent on going, you better hope the stock market starts rebounding.

Of course, it's very hard to get Super Bowl tickets anyway. Here's how they get distributed for the Feb.1 game in Tampa, according to the official website there for the game:

"The demand for tickets to Super Bowl XLIII greatly exceeds the NFL's ability to accommodate the majority of fans interested in attending the game. The vast majority of Super Bowl tickets (approximately 75%) are distributed to the 32 NFL teams. The participating teams each receive 17.5% of the tickets, the non-participating teams receive 1.2% and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as the host team, will receive 5%. The remaining 25.2% are controlled by the NFL and are distributed primarily to NFL affiliated companies, the broadcast network, corporate sponsors, media, VIP's charities, fans and the Host Committee."

The one year the Panthers made the Super Bowl they had a lottery among their PSL holders for the right to buy tickets, and if they ever make it again, I'd expect them to handle it the same way.

And here's my secret about the Super Bowl: unless the team you would bleed for is involved, I believe it is seriously overrated as an event. There's no homefield advantage. It's such a corporate crowd that every big play is cheered -- for both teams. But except for those big plays, it's surprisingly quiet and antiseptic. The Olympics, the Final Four, the Masters, the Kentucky Derby, Texas-Oklahoma -- all of those have a better atmosphere IMHO.