According to Kagan Research, despite the widespread availability of NFL games on TV, NFL teams nearly sell-out across the board for regular season games.
And NFL teams grossed $1.1 billion in sales from their 16-game regular season ticket sales in 2006, says Kagan. Major League Baseball, with a 162-game regular season, grossed $1.76 billion from ticket sales last year, but because of the high volume of games the ratio of ticket sales to total capacity falls to 69.2 per cent.
"It speaks to the power of the NFL brand," notes Kagan analyst Brian Schecter. "The in-game experience feeding off a community of 70,000 other people in the stadium is quite different than watching at home."
Fourteen of the NFL’s 32 teams actually average above 100 per cent sell out rates by selling all regular seats and then piling on standing room and temporary seating that allow for an overflow crowd.
The Tennessee Titans are at the very top with its average of 69,200 tickets sold per 2006 game running 103.3 per cent above the stadium’s official seating capacity. Only the Buffalo Bills fell below the 90 per cent mark.
