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upstart writes:

'Astronomically' high demand leads to surging Super Bowl ticket prices:

A perfect storm of factors is fueling sky high prices for Super Bowl tickets as fans clamor to be a part of Sunday's championship game in Los Angeles.

The Super Bowl is always a hot ticket, but with the Rams playing in their home stadium, die-hard Bengals fans flying in from Cincinnati, and no attendance restrictions for the first time in two years, demand is skyrocketing.

"A lot of factors are making this particular game incredibly unique," Akshay Khanna, general manager of North America for ticket retailer StubHub, told Reuters.

"But look, at the end of the day, that is just a reflection of supply and demand. There are only so many seats that are available for the Super Bowl. And the demand for a game like this is so astronomically high," Khanna added.

The "get in" price for a ticket on StubHub dipped just below $4,000 on Wednesday while the average price of tickets sold on the site was around $6,500, eye-watering amounts that left some fans with sticker shock.

[...] California buyers are driving the bulk of the sales, with residents accounting for over 50% of new ticket sales on Tuesday.

Although the Rams hope that means they will see plenty of blue and gold at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, quarterback Matthew Stafford wasn't so sure.

"I hope our fans are out there going crazy, but the Super Bowl is its own beast in terms of ticket sales," he said during a news conference. "I've seen some of those prices online and they're up there. I understand it is a lot of corporate people buying those and being able to come to the game, but hopefully we have a lot of LA Rams fans cheering for us."

takyon writes:

Restaurants scramble to serve enough chicken wings ahead of Super Bowl Sunday

Americans are projected to eat massive amounts of the game day snack, about 1.42 billion wings. That's tied with last year for a record. But this year, there are signs that getting those volumes to consumers is harder and supplies are tighter. Add to that the turmoil that has been dogging U.S. food supply chains, from labor shortfalls to missing ingredients and soaring costs all around.

Restaurants have been scrambling. Some are getting ready to switch to frozen wings in case they run out of fresh. Others are reducing the number of wings that come in an order. In a sign of the times, companies like the one that owns Chili's are booking their chicken orders into the summer and beyond to lay claim to whatever's available.

As Tom Super, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, likes to point out: chickens unfortunately only have two wings.

Your favorite Super Bowl food like wings, guacamole and beer cost more thanks to inflation

While prices of many individual items are higher, shoppers are expected to spend less on Super Bowl parties than the record $88.65 per person in 2020 when the total reached $17.2 billion, according to the National Retail Federation data. This year, shoppers will shell out $14.6 billion on food, drinks, apparel, decorations and other items for the day, up from $13.9 billion in 2021.

[...] The average price of a Hass avocado was $1.24, and they were available at 5,505 stores, compared with 78 cents last year at nearly 20,000 stores.

[...] Chicken prices have been on the rise: The new CPI report showed chicken parts were up 11.6% in January compared with last year.

[...] Like chicken, beer has been affected by supply chain disruptions, particularly brews sold in cans that are dealing with an aluminum shortage, which is limiting supplies of pet food and other canned goods. [...] Ahead of the new CPI report, the Beer Institute, a national trade association for the American brewing industry, said Wednesday that "beer prices have remained low even during a historic period of inflation." The group said the trend of low beer prices continued last year and trailed the overall CPI 1.8% to 4.7% on average in 2021.

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