SAN DIEGO HOST SUPER BOWL XXII : ‘Sharks’ Cut It Close : Scalpers Hold the Line on Prices; ‘They Practically Had Fins’

Paul Malabanan began his last-minute search for Super Bowl tickets at 5 a.m. Sunday at the La Jolla Marriott.

“The scalpers there were like sharks,” he said. “You could tell who they were just by looking at them. They practically had fins.”

By 8 a.m., Malabanan, a 37-year-old employee of the San Diego Water Utilities Department, still had not found any tickets in his price range--as close to the $100 face value as possible--so he headed to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

His luck there was no better.

“These guys who were selling tickets are so cold. They won’t even look at you,” Malabanan said. “They just wave the tickets in your face and say, ‘$500.’ ”

Still, with only an hour to go until the kickoff, Malabanan didn’t seem worried.

“The odds are with us,” he said. “Those guys are going to have to eat those tickets after the game starts. What else can they do?”

Throughout the morning and afternoon of Super Bowl Sunday, the streets leading to the stadium were crowded with football fans who were hoping to pay $100 to $200 per ticket to get into the game. They were joined by scalpers who were asking $300 to $600 per ticket.

Bills Changed Hands

Some deals were made, with stacks of $100 bills changing hands. But, citing the law of supply and demand, large numbers of both camps refused to compromise on their idea of a fair price.

“It’s going to go down soon,” said Daron Watts, a 19-year-old University of San Diego student. “Or these guys are going to be eating ticket sandwiches tonight.”

Watts was overheard by a scalper who was working the curb nearby, at Friars Road and Mission Village Drive.

“It’s going to go up, up and away,” said the scalper, who was asking upward of $300 per ticket at 2 p.m. “Psychology doesn’t work in this market.”

Despite the war of words between scalpers and would-be buyers, the mood of the crowd remained high-spirited.

“We’re not panicking,” said Kevin Brooks, of Kensington, Md. “We’re relaxed. This is our tailgate party.”

Brooks and three friends were standing at Mission Village Road and Shawn Street, waving a sign that read “I need tickets” at passing cars and limos heading for the game.

Brooks said that he and his friends were willing to pay $150 to $200 each for four tickets, but that the asking price was ranging from $300 to $600.

“I paid $350 just to get here, so I want to save a little on the tickets,” said Brooks, who flew to San Diego from Washington, D.C. Brooks added that he realized that he had taken a big chance coming here without a ticket and that he would not be that disappointed if he did not actually get into the game.

‘A Lot of Fun’

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “If we don’t get tickets, we’ll go to a bar and watch a big-screen TV, and I’ll buy a lot of beer with the 150 bucks I would have spent.”

Jim Davis, a Broncos fan from Colorado Springs, Colo., was waving his own sign a couple of blocks north on Mission Village Drive. Davis had been in Orange County on business last week and, since he was so close, decided to come to San Diego to try to get into the game.

“It doesn’t look like I’m going to have much success, seeing as how I don’t want to spend more than $200,” Davis said. The cheapest ticket he had been offered during the two hours of hustling was $350.

“It’s just not worth it,” he said. “For that, I’ll buy a TV and go somewhere and watch it.”

But Davis had no regrets about his fruitless effort.

“What else am I going to do on a Sunday afternoon?” he asked.

And he had not given up hope.

“Those tickets won’t be worth anything after kickoff,” he said.

A number of fans agreed that tickets to Sunday’s Super Bowl were more difficult to obtain than any other football tickets in their memory.

“Every other game I’ve been to, people were standing outside with hands full of tickets,” Davis said.

Tom Kapocius, a San Diego sales manager, agreed.

“I have a friend down from San Francisco,” he said. “He’s been to 10 Super Bowl games before and said this is the hardest one to get tickets to at the last minute.”

Kapocius, however, hoped to get two tickets at the $100 face value price.

“If not, we’ll go home. I only live 20 minutes from here. I’ve got a wide-screen TV and a couple of people coming over just in case,” he said.

Cold-Hearted Scalpers

Some fans tried to play on the sympathies of the scalpers, such as one man who carried a sign reading: “One ticket for an impoverished Broncos fan, please.”

But the scalpers remained cold-hearted.

“Cheapest we got is $300,” said one scalper who identified himself as a school teacher from Texas. “This is the 11th (Super Bowl) I’ve been to. They’re not going to go down.”

The scalper said that he had bought 11 tickets throughout Sunday for between $200 and $300 and was now reselling them for $300 to $500.

“I love America,” he said after selling four tickets for a total of $1,900. “I love capitalism.”

San Diego police said there were 23 arrests for scalping on the stadium grounds.

Chris Botts, a 32-year-old real estate salesman from Old Saybrook, Conn., said he was picking up some tricks from the scalpers that he would use in his own work.

“I’m finding out some new tactics for selling houses when I go back,” he said. “The $250 is the most I can do, the most I want to do. My conscience would kill me if I spent more.”

He laughed and added, “One of the reasons I can’t pay much is my brother and sister and I just went to Las Vegas.”

The scalping frenzy seemed to reach its peak around 2 p.m, when cries of “Who’s buying tickets?” and “Who’s selling tickets?” filled the air near the stadium.

Fans predicted that the price of tickets would start dropping at 2:30--about 45 minutes before kickoff. But when that hour rolled around, scalpers were still asking up to $300 per ticket.

“It won’t stop,” one scalper said. “This will go on until halftime. We go through this every year.”

Still Milling Around

Angela Pendergraft, who drove here from Denver on Friday, said that one scalper told her, “If nobody buys these two tickets for $800, I’ll just tear them up in front of all of you.”

Pendergraft, a 40-year-old secretary who wore a pin that said, “Official Bronco Nut,” shook her head.

“Everyone is really nice here,” she said. “Except for the ones selling tickets.”

At 3 p.m., as the Washington and Denver players ran out onto the field, hundreds of people were still milling around just outside the stadium parking lot, and after the first quarter, prices still were holding. Some were making plans to head to a bar with a television, but others said that they would continue their search for tickets--at least until halftime.

“I’m going to hold out,” Kevin Brooks said. “These guys are going to panic. They’re going to panic.”