Financial Super Bowl Fallout From Bad Weather?
CNBC Sports Business Reporter
The horrible weather week that was called by Dallas meteorologists as the worst week in 15 years definitely put a smacking on the Super Bowl economy.
While exact loss figures will be hard to come by, we gathered some of the best anecdotal evidence we could to paint the picture.
Restaurants we frequented on Wednesday and Thursday told us that not only did they not see a Super Bowl bump, but that business was worse than normal.
Fans who came to town early told us that the bitter cold, the ice and the snow meant canceling dinner reservations, ordering room service and drinking at the hotel bar.
Moving around town since Tuesday afternoon hasn't been easy as cabbies have taken longer than usual to drive in snowy and icy conditions that they're understandably not used to.
A call to a cab company on Friday morning, as three inches came down, told us that the wait was hours long and that they were only servicing the airports for the few flights that came in.
Airlines who canceled flights to Dallas made special efforts from Milwaukee and Pittsburgh to satisfy Packers and Steelers fans, who will at least sit indoors for the game at Cowboys Stadium.
Ticket prices finally started to come down on Friday afternoon. While the average price paid on StubHub still hovered around $3,500 a seat, StubHub spokesman Joellen Ferrer told CNBC that the get-in price dropped below $2,000 (to $1,900) for the first time in six days.
Patrick Ryan of The Ticket Experience, a brokerage in Houston, said that many brokers jumped at the lower prices on Friday, but said that it was possible that more inventory could hit the market on Saturday and into Sunday if the rumblings of many in corporate America pulling the plug on their trips came true.
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