A fan of the New England Patriots was the first to use cryptocurrency to buy Super Bowl tickets as he spent 2.2 bitcoins for 50-yard line seats at Super Bowl LII.
The football season has finally reached its climax as the Super Bowl is set to take place tomorrow between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. Super Bowl LII is being held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it’s estimated that over a 100 million people alone in the USA will watch it. Of course, die-hard fans will watch the gridiron match from the stands of US Bank Stadium. One fan made crypto history by being the first to use bitcoins to buy tickets to Super Bowl LII.
Sitting on the 50-Yard Line
A fan of the New England Patriots had to be on the sidelines for the big game. However, vendors of such tickets do not currently take cryptocurrency. Luck was with him as he contacted TickPick, a secondary ticket vendor, to see if they would accept bitcoins as a payment option.
TickPick decided to take the fan (who wished to remain anonymous) up on the offer and agreed to sell him the tickets. The fan bought seats on the first row on the 50-yard line (the most coveted seats in football) for the price of 2.2 bitcoins. At the time of purchase, the value of the bitcoins came to $19,000.
That’s not a bad price for first row seats. According to TickPick, seats on the 50-yard line are going for between $8000 to $9000, but those seats are much further back. Someone currently has row 2 seats for $15,255 each, if you’re interested.
TickPick Still Not Sold on Bitcoin
Overall, it took about an hour for the transaction to take place. The CEO of TickPick, Brett Goldberg, was quite happy to make the ticket exchange for bitcoins. However, don’t plan on start using your cryptocurrency to buy tickets for sporting events or concerts any time soon on the website.
Goldberg is not yet on board using crypto as an everyday means of purchase. He says:
In an hour you can see hundreds of dollars in swing. The second it hit my account it was transferred to U.S. dollars.
Me as a business, I don’t want to own bitcoin. I don’t want to be exposed to the volatility.
While lamentable, Goldberg’s attitude toward cryptocurrency is understandable. Most businesses have very tight margins that they operate on, and having a unit of currency fluctuating double digits is enough to give them ulcers.
Still, small steps matter. The first-ever use of Bitcoin to buy Super Bowl tickets is worthy of note, and hopefully, a harbinger of things to come.
Who are you rooting for in Super Bowl LII? How soon do you think it will be commonplace to buy tickets for events with cryptocurrency? Let us know in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Pexels, Wikimedia Commons, and Bitcoinist archives.
