Last summer, football fans in Texas entertained hopes of seeing one — or both — of the state’s NFL teams in the Super Bowl at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. The Cowboys were a popular preseason pick to win the NFC while the Houston Texans were viewed as a sleeper contender in the AFC.

It didn’t take long for the Lone Star State’s Super Bowl aspirations to fade. The Cowboys started 1-7 on their way to finishing tied for last in the NFC East at 6-10 while the Texans opened up 4-2 but lost eight of their last 10 games — including six by a touchdown or less — to finish, that’s right, tied for last in the AFC South at 6-10.

Fortunately for ticket brokers, though, the lack of a home team in the Super Bowl this Sunday, February 6 isn’t dissuading Texas fans from snapping up tickets to the title game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers.

As of Wednesday, February 2, Texas residents had accounted for 25.4 percent of the Super Bowl tickets purchased from the NFL TicketExchange (the official ticket reseller of the NFL), by far the highest number of any state. Pennsylvania (8.2 percent) and Wisconsin (7.9 percent) ranked second and third. The NFL’s TicketExchange is powered by Ticketmaster.

Texas residents have also generated the most searches for Super Bowl tickets at SeatGeek,com. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin rank third and fifth at SeatGeek.com, respectively.

Such figures are a dramatic departure from last year, when Louisiana — home of the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints — accounted for 34.8 percent of the ticket sales at NFL TicketExchange, more than three times the sales generated by second-place Florida. Super Bowl XLIV was held at Sun Life Stadium in Miami.

“That’s an interesting stat,” Premium Seats USA president and CEO
Jimmy Siegendorf told TicketNews. “That tells me that a lot of [this year’s] ticket sales are being driven by the corporate market. You’ve got a lot of big companies in Texas, oil money, so that would tell me that the corporations are spending money.”

The intrastate demand has helped make a Super Bowl XLV ticket far more expensive than a ticket to Super Bowl XLIV. According to the NFL TicketExchange, the average price of a ticket purchased from the NFL TicketExchange, as of Wednesday, was $4,118.87. The most expensive ticket sold thus far went for $15,946.34. Last year’s average ticket price was $3,208 and the most expensive ducat was $11,942.58.

SeatGeek.com’s figures were even higher: The average ticket price there for a ticket to Super Bowl XLV was $5,376.

Siegendorf said the active market is a good sign for the industry and the economy in general. “People are spending money on entertainment,” Siegendorf said. “These high-profile events are definitely more driven by the corporate market and we’ve seen strong prices for the Super Bowl throughout the last couple weeks. I think it’s a sign of the economy bouncing back and I think people should be optimistic about that [and] could read into that that things are turning for the better.”

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