Let’s say someone wrote you a check for $5,134. That amount of money can cover the average worker’s salary for six weeks, purchase an 11-night Caribbean cruise (three times), and buy about eight iPhone 6s’s. It could have also bought you a decent – but not great – single ticket to Super Bowl 50.

Understandably, witnessing a star-studded event such as the Super Bowl or any other major sporting event comes at a significant cost. The average ticket price for a game in last year’s MLB World Series settled in at $1,437.81. The average ticket price for the 2016 NBA All-Star Game was around $1,000. Yet, there comes a point when the money, so deeply ingrained in the professional sports culture, overshadows the celebration of athletic talent and competition.

Aditya Varshney
The graph above depicts the average Super Bowl ticket prices from 2011 to 2016, per reports from SB Nation. With prices on a steady incline since the first Super Bowl, the cost of the game has already begun dictating who can purchase seats and witness the sporting event.

The purest way to appreciate a sport is through playing it, but witnessing professional athletes compete in person (not behind a screen) comes in as a close second.

Sure, some remember game-winning touchdowns or go-ahead jumpers, but my most vivid memories are the ones that I shared with my family at Candlestick Park or Oracle Arena. With inflated ticket prices, money serves as the determining factor whether or not others will have the same opportunity.

As these prices escalate, white-collar business ventures are replacing the family experience. Few people can pay over $20,000 to bring their families to a game, so the high costs perpetuate an exclusive culture in which only the rich can afford to watch sports in person.

But, why not just watch games on television? Though cheaper on the screen, watching the game is incomplete that way. The atmosphere of the diehard fans, the dripping sweat of the athletes, the pulse of the stadium – it’s all gone.

To many, the top players are superheroes, and fans will bear tremendous financial costs to watch their heroes play a game. You can’t find another Serena Williams or J.J. Watt or LeBron James. Sky-high contracts simply mirror the value that society places on these athletes.

Sheer competitiveness, awe-inspiring skill, gut-wrenching perseverance: these are the values associated with sports. While high ticket prices, advertisements and endorsements do not destroy these tenets, they push them aside to a point at which commercialization is as significant as the competition itself.
Being at games, I remember the swish of the net as Stephen Curry drained a three-pointer or the spiral of the football as Peyton Manning threw a touchdown. I remember the heated rivalries and competition. But as profit-oriented incentives dilute professional sports, we won’t just see sports, we’ll increasingly see the money behind them.

Alex Youn (11) is Sports Editor for TALON Yearbook and a staff member for three years. His column, “Beyond the Game,” discusses sports, ethics and society.