The return of the National Football League to Mexico after a four-year absence has prompted extraordinary ticket demand.
The Minnesota Vikings and the San Francisco 49ers will square off in a Week 11 match-up on NBC’s Sunday Night Football at Mexico City’s Estadio Banorte (formerly Estadio Azteca). More than seven weeks before the Nov. 22 game, nearly 840,000 fans had registered to acquire the highly sought-after ducats, according to Ticketmaster.
The 49ers will return to face Minnesota in Mexico City, the NFL confirms
The ticket sales company said that an average purchase is typically 2.6 tickets per person, thus calculating that the potential demand for the game would be 2.2 million. Ticketmaster said the NFL would have to stage 27 games to accommodate the estimated demand.
Breaking down the data further, Ticketmaster said 45% of ticket requests came from people outside of Mexico City, while 14% of the total came from abroad, including folks from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Slovakia and France.
The Vikings-49ers game will be the sixth regular-season NFL game in Mexico, which hosted the first NFL regular-season game outside the United States in 2005 with 103,467 spectators in attendance.
The 49ers — along with the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers — are among the most popular NFL teams in Mexico.
According to the league itself, Mexico is home to the biggest NFL fan base outside of the United States, estimated at between 23 and 40 million aficionados.
The NFL is contracted to hold single games in Mexico next year and in 2028, as well, with those games also scheduled to take place in Estadio Azteca.
The game promises to be an attractive contest as both the Niners and the Vikings are undefeated through the first four weeks of the season. Tickets range in price from 2,108 pesos (US $177) to 11,656 pesos ($649).
The NFL announced last month that ranchera singer Majo Aguilar and MXKA, an African American singer-songwriter of Mexican descent, will perform the national anthems of Mexico and the United States, respectively.
The halftime entertainment will be supplied by The Warning, a hard rock and alternative rock band formed by three sisters from Monterrey.
With reports from Forbes México, EFE and Aristegui Noticias
