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On Saturday, sing-game tickets for the Cincinnati Bengals' 2014 home games will go on sale. After winning the AFC North and making it to the playoffs as No. 3 seed, it's reasonable to see why ticket prices might be a little higher this year.
But in the grand landscape of things, they shouldn't be too much higher for a team that's lost in the Wild Card round in each of the past three postseasons. They've gone from nine wins in 2011 to 11 wins in 2013, but still were knocked out during the first weekend of playoff games.
Still, fan optimism is high with this team, and that's caused the secondary market for ticket prices to rise. If you buy tickets for face value, you'll get them as low as $44 per game, with $50, $65, $72 and $80 being the other amounts per game.
As for the secondary market, anyone who gets their hands on tickets isn't re-selling them for cheap.
Jesse Lawrence of Forbes did an in-depth study on Bengals ticket prices of year's past, and how they've risen significantly this year on the secondary market.
According to TiqIQ, the average price for Bengals tickets during the 2014 season is $166.02. Though it remains one of the least expensive home averages in the NFL this year, it is the first season since TiqIQ has kept track of data the Bengals have a season average above $120. Last season, the home average at Paul Brown Stadium was just $118.74.
The most expensive home game on the Bengals schedule in 2013 was the Week 11 game against the Cleveland Browns, which had an average price of $159.07, 4% below this season’s average. Even Cincinnati’s home playoff game against the San Diego Chargers had a lower average price than this year’s season average at $134.31.
The secondary market average for the Bengals has barely moved in the previous three seasons. The year-to-year trend was less than 1% each year from 2011 to 2013. The 2011 season average, coming off a 4-12 season, was $117. The multi-year price increase from 2011 to 2013 was just 1.5%. From 2013 to 2014 alone the average price has increased 40%.
As Lawrence said, it's still one of the least expensive home averages in the NFL this year. That said, it's nice to see the value of a ticket to a Bengals game has risen so much.