America’s Team? When it comes to ticket demand, the Dallas Cowboys certainly are.
According to StubHub’s data heading into the 2017 season, which kicks off Thursday night, the Cowboys easily have maintained their top spot, doubling the popularity of games involving New England. The Patriots, who open the schedule against Kansas City in that kickoff game, have seen a 44 percent rise in demand for their games, yet aren’t within shouting distance of Dallas.
Green Bay, which has a highly attractive opener at Lambeau Field against Seattle, is third in ticket popularity.
Heading into the full schedule, StubHub has seen such a prominent desire among fans to acquire Cowboys tickets that half of its top 10 most coveted tickets are for Dallas contests. Tops on the list is Sunday night’s opener against the visiting New York Giants.
Right behind is the Packers’ visit to Texas on Oct. 8. Surprisingly, the Thanksgiving matchup, this year with the Chargers, is not in the top 10. At least not yet.
“It’s really impressive how the Cowboys continue to lead other teams in demand, despite not having made it to a championship game in recent memory,” says StubHub’s Cameron Papp. “Meanwhile, the Patriots’ success these last two decades and Tom Brady’s MVP-caliber play have made the team a consistent draw at home and on the road in recent years.”
Demand is extremely high for tickets for Thursday night, when the Patriots will celebrate their fifth Super Bowl title with Brady at quarterback. Fans are more than twice as interested in obtaining tickets for Chiefs-Patriots as they were for the previous two kickoff games: Pittsburgh at New England in 2015, Carolina at Denver in a Super Bowl rematch last year.
Two franchises have new homes this season — indeed, the Chargers are in L.A. rather than San Diego. So attending Falcons games in the just-opened Mercedes Benz Stadium figures to be a more popular option than when they played at the Georgia Dome next door. It doesn’t hurt that the Falcons are defending NFC champions and nearly won the Super Bowl.
Their most in-demand home ticket is for a Week 2 match against the Packers.
The Chargers have fewer than 30,000 seats in the StubHub Center in Carson, California; they had more than twice that capacity in San Diego. Yet the most wanted tickets for the Chargers are for away games at the Cowboys, Giants and Patriots.
Papp calls the Chargers’ temporary home until they move into a megastadium they will share with the Rams an “intimate environment unique to the NFL.”
More telling is just how full StubHub Center will be and how tough a ticket Chargers games might become given the size of the venue.