Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Super Bowl ticket prices on the resale market are down 16 percent from the last time the Pittsburgh Steelers played for the National Football League championship three years ago as the recession cuts into demand.

The average price for a ticket for the Feb. 1 game between the Steelers and Arizona Cardinals in Tampa, Florida, is about $2,500 on the resale market, according to Sean Pate, a spokesman for EBay Inc.’s Stubhub, the largest online ticket broker. That’s down from an average of $3,009 in 2006, when the Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks. They are down about $1,000 from last year, when the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots.

When ticket prices for an American touchstone like the Super Bowl decline, that’s a sure sign that the economy is on the skids, said Andrew Zimbalist, who teaches economics at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and has consulted for professional sports teams, leagues and players unions.

“The Super Bowl is a cultural ritual akin to Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner and it always has tremendous appeal,” Zimbalist said. “Secondary sales is where you see what is happening in the broader economy.”

The U.S., Japan and Europe were in recession as the housing bubble burst and bank lending dried up, causing more than $1.05 trillion in global credit losses and writedowns, and a financial crisis that President Barack Obama described as “unprecedented” last week.

Sinking Economy

The global economic crisis and reductions in corporate spending are depressing the resale price of tickets to all events, said Jeff Lapin, chief executive of the online broker RazorGator Inc., which has partnerships with NFL teams including the Seahawks, Carolina Panthers and Philadelphia Eagles.

RazorGator’s average price was $2,802, down from $3,100 last season. The highest-priced ticket sold for $8,000, down from $9,850.

“Last year, I remember seats between the 25-yard-lines selling for $8,000 and $9,000,” Lapin said. “This year, you can get them for $5,000. And even though that’s still an incredible amount of money, it’s about half price.”

Face Value

Tickets to this year’s Super Bowl carry a face value of either $800 or $1,000, with about 1,000 available at $500. The cheapest sold on Stubhub cost a buyer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, $1,299 when purchased last weekend.

A fan from Tampa bought access to a luxury suite in an end zone, along with eight tickets, for $51,200. StubHub doesn’t identify individual buyers.

Smaller ticker resellers also are seeing prices fall.

“Tickets are almost half of last year’s prices,” said Jim Holzman, founder of Ace Tickets, which has eight locations in the Boston area. In the past, companies “would say ‘we’re gonna take 100 of our best clients, fly them down on a corporate jet, put them up at the nicest hotel. Nobody’s gonna spend $1 million that way this year.”

Twice as many people sold tickets on Stubhub this year than last, increasing gross dollar sales by about 35 percent, Pate said. This Super Bowl is the second-highest grossing event in company history, behind last year’s championship game, even with the reduced prices.

“It’s still an event that people are flocking to,” he said. “It’s really the most affordable Super Bowl we’ve seen in years.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Kuriloff in New York at akuriloff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 28, 2009 00:00 EST