Sunday’s Super Bowl is brought to you by . . . money! Tickets for this year’s game started at $2,500 per ticket and escalated to $4,500 for the cheap seats. That does not account for hotel, airfare, meals or souvenirs — all the additional expenses of attending the event. If you wait until you know your team is playing in the Super Bowl, tickets alone will cost $10,000 or more for two people. And the commercials you’ll see? Those cost an estimated $5.5 million for only one 30-second ad!

Not a standard inflation

In 1967, the year of the first Super Bowl, tickets were $12 each and stayed below $100 until 1988. Since 1967, tickets have seen a 20,000% inflation rate. Maybe you make more than $10,000 per month or have been saving money all year in order to attend the event. But, given that the median income per household in the U.S. for 2019 was just over $63,000, and the average household income was just below $90,000, most of us would have to go into debt to attend this year’s Super Bowl game.

Field goals or financial goals

The Super Bowl has become a corporate machine that is built on money, marketed to the masses and attended only by the elite few who are either wealthy or well-connected. Given these facts, what is the average fan or family to do? Most of us will enjoy the event from the comforts of home and not think too much about what we might be missing. Most of us do not make it our life’s goal to earn so much money that we easily can spend $10,000 or more on a day’s entertainment without any financial worry. And do you think that is how God would have us determine our financial goals anyway? No one is suggesting we all must live like hermits or monks in monasteries and devote ourselves solely to prayer. But we do need to frame our goals around God instead of money, and we do need to periodically evaluate our financial mindset so that we do not fall into the traps of greed, selfishness, gluttony or idolatry.

Question of the day: What event would tempt you to overpay for tickets?
Focal scriptures: Matthew 6:24; Matthew 19:16-22; 2 Timothy 3:1-5, 10-17

For a complete lesson on this topic visit LinC.