Chicago Bears season-ticket holders will have one less game in their ticket packages this season than they did in 2023.
But they’re not seeing a reduction in price for that.
Despite having tickets to just nine games, one preseason and eight regular-season, at Soldier Field in 2024 — instead of the usual 10 — Bears season-ticket holders will see an increase in prices.
The Sun-Times reports that in an email earlier this year to season-ticket holders, the Bears wrote that season-ticket packages for 2024 “have increased on average 8%, with increases ranging from 6.2% to 11.3%.”
When broken down per game, however, the Sun-Times report notes that the per-ticket increase was higher for many fans than what the Bears’ letter noted.
That’s because one of the team’s nine home games in 2024 will actually be played in London. The Bears will be the designated “home” team against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Oct. 13 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
NFC teams this season have the extra home game on the NFL’s 17-game regular-season schedule, giving them nine. But with one of those games in London, the Bears have eight regular-season games at Soldier Field in 2024, plus a preseason game there on Aug. 17 that’s also part of season-ticket holders’ packages.
In the Sun-Times report, Rob Schwarz Jr., who splits four season tickets in Section 131 with his siblings, said they paid $7,072 for 10 total games in 2023. That’s an average of $176.80 per ticket.
In 2024, Schwarz tells the Sun-Times, they’ll pay $7,568 for nine games at Soldier Field, an average of $210.22 per ticket.
That’s a price increase of $33.42 per ticket, or 18.9%. So when looking at their per-ticket average, you can see why some season-ticket holders feel the Bears were misleading in their email about price increases of “6.2% to 11.3%.”
“As a ‘package’ they didn’t lie, but the letter was definitely misleading,” Schwarz told the Sun-Times. “I also wish they were more transparent and less misleading in their numbers.
“Are we only paying 7% more than 2023? Yes. Are we paying more for less? In a way, yes.”
How expensive are NFL tickets?
While season tickets and some multi-game packages were already been available before last week, single-game tickets went on sale last week Wednesday night after the NFL’s 2024 schedule release.
Whether you’re paying for a full season-ticket package or just trying to snag tickets to a game or two, attending a Bears or any other NFL game is not cheap. While data for 2024 ticket prices is just starting to come out, it’s a safe bet that fans will pay more than they ever have, based on recent data.
USA Today reported at the start of the 2023 season that, according to data from TicketSmarter, the average price of an NFL ticket jumped to $377, a huge increase from $235 in 2022.
The most expensive average cost per ticket in 2023 belonged to the Las Vegas Raiders at $582, followed by the Kansas City Chiefs ($578), Philadelphia Eagles ($559), Dallas Cowboys ($545) and New England Patriots ($534).
The cheapest average cost per ticket, meanwhile, was for the Atlanta Falcons ($225), followed by the Houston Texans ($236), Arizona Cardinals ($250), Tampa Bay Buccaneers ($263) and Tennessee Titans ($265).
If you were just looking for the least expensive option last season, however, TicketSmarter says the cheapest average ticket to a Bears game was $126, which ranked 21st in the 32-team NFL in that metric. The least expensive was the Houston Texans, with an average cheapest ticket cost of $49.
As for 2024, a Forbes article last week says that, according to Vivid Seats, the costliest average single-game NFL ticket so far following the schedule release is $601 for the Oct. 13 game in Las Vegas between the Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers.
No game involving the Bears this season made that list’s top-10 costliest average ticket.
In terms of season-ticket prices, while Bears fans feel they may have gotten a bad deal in 2024, Forbes reports that even the Carolina Panthers, the worst team in the NFL last season, announced they’re raising season-ticket prices.
One of the Bears’ NFC North Division rivals, meanwhile, has really hiked season-ticket prices. According to Front Office Sports, the Detroit Lions have told season-ticket holders that prices will come with an average increase of 30% percent in 2024, and as much as 85% for some seats at Ford Field.
Of course, that type of price hike is always more palatable when your team is doing well, and Lions fans are probably happy to pay after their team won a division title for the first time since 1993 last season and made it all the way to the NFC Championship Game.
As Bears fan Timothy Shanley told the Sun-Times about his own 31.7% per-game price increase for season tickets, “Winning solves everything.”