When it comes to going to the Super Bowl or paying off debt, most Americans would choose the more boring — but financially smarter — option.
Some 81% of Americans who have credit-card debt said they’d rather pay their debt than attend the world’s most-watched football game, which, including travel, could cost an estimated $11,500, according to the personal-finance website NerdWallet.
That’s a savvy move. It would take 17 years to pay down that all-inclusive ticket by making minimum payments only, NerdWallet found. And if you bought a $3,000 entry-level Super Bowl ticket, it would take 11 years to pay off.
And for those who buy on the resale market, it would take even longer. Tickets to this year’s Super Bowl on average cost $5,366 on the ticket resale site StubHub.
The cheapest ticket sold was for $2,350, in the upper corner of U.S. Bank USB, -0.97% stadium in Minneapolis, where the Philadelphia Eagles will face off against the New England Patriots. Some 13% of sales went to buyers in Pennsylvania, compared to 11% in Massachusetts, 10% in California and 8% in Minnesota, StubHub found.
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NerdWallet surveyed nearly 2,000 consumers in January who have credit-card debt and asked if they’d prefer an all-expenses paid trip to the Super Bowl, or if they’d rather use that amount of money to pay down their debt. The vast majority said they’d rather pay down their debt. Of those who said they’d rather go to the Super Bowl, 74% said they would like to go because it’s a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
There’s good reason to focus on debt than splurging on a big sports event. Credit-card delinquencies, or late payments on debts, increased in 2017, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Americans now have the most outstanding revolving debt — often characterized as credit card debt — in U.S. history, according to the Federal Reserve. The collective debt is now more than $1 trillion.
Many Americans are coming to Super Bowl Sunday with a debt hangover from the holidays. Only half of shoppers who racked up an average of $1,054 in debt during this past Christmas season — an increase of 5% since 2016 — said they could pay that debt back within three months, and 29% said they’d need more than five months to pay it off.