The Best Time to Buy NFL Tickets [2024]

Unless you're a season ticket holder, it's hard to get tickets to see your favorite NFL teams. With most games sold out, most diehards will be forced to the secondary market for tickets, meaning inflated prices and high service fees. So is there any way to save on tickets?

Unlike initial-sale tickets, secondary market prices fluctuate over time. Is there a “right” time to buy tickets, and should fans wait or buy early?

To uncover the best time to buy resale NFL tickets, FinanceBuzz analyzed over 900,000 aftermarket ticket sales from the NFL games. Using data from SeatData.io, we determined when ticket demand is highest, when prices are lowest, and how long fans should hold out to get the best deal.

Key findings

• Wait to buy — In general, the closer it is to kickoff, the better the deal for NFL tickets. For example, tickets are 13% lower than average on gameday.
• The worst time to buy NFL tickets is 3 weeks or more in advance. Fans paid 3% more than average when buying resale tickets 3 weeks or more in advance.
• Fans save an average of $20 per ticket by buying during the week leading up to game day.
• 28% of all secondary-market NFL tickets were sold the week of the game.

The best time to buy tickets for an NFL game

When it comes to buying secondary-market NFL tickets, patience is a virtue. While it may be hard for some football fanatics to wait, holding off until just before game day can reap big savings.

NFL fans who purchased tickets months before a game pay more on average than those who wait until the last minute. Tickets purchased more than two months before a game cost 3% more than the average resale price for the season. And nearly half of all resale tickets were sold during this time period.

Conversely, the longer fans waited to buy tickets, the better deal they got. Fans that waited until the week of the game paid 8% less than average for their seats — a savings of nearly $20 per ticket. During the 2023-2024 NFL season, 17% of resale tickets were purchased the same week as the game.

Fans who want the best possible deal on NFL tickets are going to have to be the most patient. Some of the lowest-priced tickets of all were sold in the days just before kickoff. Only 2% of all resale tickets were sold on game days, but they were 12% cheaper than average.

If waiting until game day feels too risky, fans can still save over 10% on average by purchasing tickets even one or two days before a game. In fact, tickets sold three days before the game offered even bigger savings than gameday, coming in 13% cheaper than average.

NFL fan bases that can save the most by buying the week of the game

This trend — a price drop the week of the game — applied to 18 of the 32 NFL teams last season. That means that fans of more than half of the teams in the league could save money by waiting until the week of the game to buy their resale tickets.

Compared to the average resale cost for a home ticket across the entire season, New England Patriots fans who waited to buy got the biggest discount of any NFL team. On average, Patriots fans saved 34% by waiting until the week of the game to buy tickets. They’re one of four fan bases that saved over 25% on average by being patient last season.

The other fans who saved big by waiting to buy tickets were the Tennessee Titans (33% average savings), Arizona Cardinals (28%), and the Chicago Bears (26%). Fans of the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs were also able to get a great deal to watch Patrick Mahomes and company by waiting as well, saving 19% if they were patient enough to wait until game week to buy tickets.

Tips for saving money while supporting your favorite NFL team

Whichever fan base you’re part of, there are ways to save money while you support your team this season:

• Cut the cord. For those planning on watching at home, find the cheapest ways to stream your team with our sports streaming tool. Just put in your must-see team, and the tool will tell you the cheapest combination of streaming services to catch every game.
• Shop online for your team gear. Using the Capital One Shopping extension, you can compare prices for team gear when you’re looking for your next jersey.
  
• Earn perks and rewards with ticket purchases. Certain credit cards offer bonuses on entertainment purchases, such as NFL tickets. Find out how you can use your Chase Sapphire card to earn experiences.
• Evaluate your budget. Take some time to look at your current spending. Maybe you're spending money on things you don't love as much as football. Some of the best budgeting apps make eliminating unnecessary spending really easy.

Alternatively, you could start a side hustle to some extra income to cover the costs of being a die-hard NFL fan. Check out our list of ways to make extra money.

Methodology

FinanceBuzz used data from seatdata.io to analyze over 900,000 million NFL tickets sold on secondary markets (such as StubHub) for all regular season games played during the 2023-2024 season. Games played overseas were not included in this analysis.

When evaluating prices over time, the date range labels used correspond to these specific times prior to a game:

• Week of game: 0-7 days before game
• 1 week: 8-14 days before game
• 2 weeks: 15-21 days before game
• 3 weeks: 22-28 days before game
• 1-2 months: 29-60 days before game
• More than 2 months: 61+ days before game

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