How much would you pay to see a Super Bowl?

Last week, the Journal's Matthew Futterman reported on the National Football League's plan to raise ticket prices for its upcoming New York/New Jersey Super Delicious Possibly Freezing Outdoor Snowfall (or Perhaps Sleet) Bowl. Actually, raise is too generous a word. Spike would work. Laugh uproariously as they hit you over the head with a sock full of $100 bills isn't bad, either. The best tickets at Met Life stadium for SB XLVIII next Feb. 2 may sell for as much as $2,600—more than double the rate of the highest-priced seats at last season's Super Bowl in New Orleans. However, I do believe this comes with free use of most stairwells and rest rooms.

You don't need me to tell you that this is a ridiculous amount for one seat. For $2,600 you could fly yourself and a friend to Paris and stuff your face at Le Chateaubriand. You could charter a sailboat in the Caribbean, stare into the night sky and contemplate the meaning of the Jacksonville Jaguars. You could buy 10,400 25-cent gum balls. You could also not spend the $2,600 on a ticket to a football game, which is the advice my prudent father-in-law would surely give.

This ticket hike was met with predictable eye-rolls but also grim acceptance. After all, this is what happens when stuff happens in New York City. This is an outrageously expensive place to live. New York is the home of the $18 vodka tonic and the $650 a month parking space and the $2,500-a-month studio apartment that is as small as a cat carrying case. You spend money here even when you're trying not to spend money. The old joke was that there was a $20 fee in New York City just to leave your apartment. I believe that fee is now up to $40. If you do not leave your apartment, the city still sends you a bill for $35.

Still, people pay. New York seems to have a never-ending supply of overstuffed wallets. Who would pay such a price to see a New York/New Jersey Super Bowl? is the kind of question you ask if you are not familiar with New York/New Jersey. If you have to ask…If you have to ask…you must be new in town.