Super Bowl ticket prices down

Looking for a ticket to Super Bowl 51 in Houston on Feb. 5?

Don’t buy it now if you want to get the best price.

The average price for tickets to the matchup between the Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots is already down 9 percent from last year’s game, according to ticket reseller Stub Hub. And they are expected to drop even more in the days leading up to the game.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the average ticket price drops another $500-600 as the week goes,” said Glenn Lehrman Stub Hub’s global head of communications.

The average price for a ticket at Stub Hub on Friday was $4,945 with the cheapest ticket going for $2,499 and the most expensive one sold to date going for a whopping $15,432.

Prices at Vivid Seats, another ticket reseller, were similar with an average price of $4,510 and the least expensive ticket going for $2,795, and Ticket City had an average price of $4,375.

When tickets first hit the market they were much more expensive mostly because many thought the Dallas Cowboys would be in the big game.

Things changed quickly when they were eliminated by the Green Bay Packers in the NFC divisional round, dropping ticket prices by close to a third.

“Tickets initially were pretty expensively priced because there was the anticipation that the Cowboys might be in the Super Bowl. So that kept the ticket prices high,” Lehrman said.

Cleat competition

Devonta Freeman and Malcolm Butler are opening competition before they even meet in the Super Bowl.

The Falcons’ 1,000-yard running back and Patriots cornerback whose interception clinched the 2015 Super Bowl victory are trying to outdo each other in a custom cleat faceoff.

After fans design the cleats, the players will choose their favorite and cleat artist Marcus Rivero will create the look. Each player will wear his special footwear in the warmup for the Super Bowl.

From Saturday through Tuesday, fans can visit the Microsoft area at the NFL Experience in Houston to use Sketchable, a feature rich drawing app on Microsoft’s new Surface Studio and Surface Hub devices. Once the winning designs are chosen, Rivero will have the cleats ready for viewing two days before the big game.

‘Hamilton’ cast to sing

Original cast members of the Tony Award-winning Broadway hit “Hamilton: An American Musical,” will sing “America the Beautiful” during pregame festivities at Super Bowl 51, the NFL and Fox announced.

The performance by Renee Elise Goldsberry, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Phillipa Soo, who starred as the Schuyler Sisters, will be televised live by Fox prior to kickoff Feb. 5 when the Atlanta Falcons face the New England Patriots.

Beginning with Vicki Carr in 1977, “America the Beautiful” has been sung eight other times prior to the Super Bowl, most recently in 2013 when Jennifer Hudson and 26 children from Newtown, Connecticut, sang the song in advance of Super Bowl 47.