Tickets for Sunday’s game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns were going for cheap.
Early on Sunday, it was reported that fans could get into the game for $3 (read more here). According to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, tickets eventually dropped to as low as $1. Still, at kickoff, plenty of good seats were left unclaimed in Cleveland’s FirstEnergy Stadium.
Tickets went down to $1 for Bengals at Browns today…it didn't help (📷 by @BrianDulik) pic.twitter.com/VaQYF7jA6A
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 11, 2016
This comes on the heels of a Monday Night Football game between the Indianapolis Colts and New York Jets where tickets were going for as low as $5, which you can read about here.
Seeing this many empty seats is certainly eye-opening. It’s just not at all surprising.
The Browns are terrible and have a realistic chance at an 0-16 record. The Bengals aren’t officially eliminated from playoff contention, but they aren’t going anywhere, either.
The weather is expected to be poor in most northern outdoor stadiums. While fans in Ohio are certainly used to bad weather, watching two bad teams play in freezing weather is still not an ideal way to spend a Sunday.
Lastly, while the ticket costs are cheap, the costs of parking, concessions, souvenirs, etc. still makes attending an NFL game quite expensive.
With plenty of games between non-contending NFL teams on the schedule, we should expect to see more of this before the 2016 NFL season draws to a close.