Here's a number that stopped us mid-scroll: as of October 9, the median NFL ticket across the league's price index sits at $115 for a get-in seat. But that median hides a wild spread. Seahawks tickets are running a median of $288. Titans tickets? $29. That's not a typo — it's a $259 gap between the league's priciest and cheapest regular tickets, tracked across 168 upcoming games.
The Seahawks, Bears ($269.50) and Raiders ($263.35) round out the top of the board. On the other end, Buccaneers ($48.30), Cowboys ($39), and Titans close it out. If you're building a fall road trip around football, that's the kind of data worth checking before you book anything.
A live example: Giants at Commanders
You don't have to take our word for the volatility — watch it happen in real time. The Giants at Commanders matchup this Sunday has been tracked since July 14, and the swing has been dramatic. Prices peaked at $188 back on September 20, then slid all the way down to $70 by October 9 — a 41% drop in just the last seven days alone. The median over that 84-day window sits at $125, which means fans who waited caught this one well under the average.
That's not a fluke. It's the pattern our own research keeps confirming.
What the best-time-to-buy data actually says
We've pulled the numbers across 6,150 events tracked between late July and early October, and sports is one of the clearest categories for patient buyers. On average, prices drop a median of 22% between 30 days out and the day of the game, based on 179 tracked sports events. Narrow that window to just the final two weeks, and sports tickets still get cheaper 68% of the time, with a median drop of 14% across 327 events. You can dig into the full breakdown — concerts, comedy, and theater included — on our best-time-to-buy research page.
The Commanders game is basically that research playing out on a single ticket. Early buyers paid premium prices for a marquee NFC East matchup. Fans who tracked it and waited got the same seats for less than half.
So what do you do with this?
If you're chasing a high-demand team like the Seahawks or Bears, don't expect the same drop-off — premium matchups and limited inventory tend to hold their price, or even climb, closer to kickoff. But for the broader slate of NFL Sundays, the data leans in the buyer's favor the longer you can comfortably wait. Set a price alert, watch the trend line, and let the market come to you.
And if football isn't your thing this week, remember the same logic holds across categories — check the full NFL price index for every team's median, or browse what's moving across the board at our sports hub. The data doesn't lie, even when a $259 gap between two fan bases definitely raises an eyebrow.
