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It may be too early to know how NFL opponents will scheme when they prepare to host the 2014 Chargers, but one thing is already clear: they have ticket brokers moaning the Battling Bolts Blues.
According to secondary ticket marketer Vivid Seats, the Chargers depress the average ticket value of their NFL opponents by nearly 13 percent when they play on the road. Only six of the league's 32 teams fare worse: Tennessee, St. Louis, Buffalo, Tampa Bay, Arizona and Jacksonville.
On the other hand, bad news for ticket brokers means good news for fans. It means Chargers' tickets are much more affordable than the NFL average. For instance, median-priced tickets for games against the Kansas City Chiefs (Dec. 28) and the Buffalo Bills (Sept. 21) can be purchased for $79 and $92, respectively. That's far below the NFL's average ticket prices.
Chargers fans looking for cheap tickets to games closer to home could grab a ducat when the Jaguars come to town on Sept. 28 (median price of $110) or venture to Oakland on Oct. 12 (median price of $100).
If money is no object to one's fandom, consider these games: Chargers at San Francisco, Dec. 20 (median ticket price of $287), New England at San Diego, Dec. 7 ($265), Chargers at Denver, Oct. 23 ($262) and the Broncos visit to Qualcomm on Dec. 14 ($227).
The Chargers have the league's 17th-highest average ticket prices for their home games, $181, or less than half of the league-leading Chicago Bears, where an average ticket will cost $428. The Chargers don't appear in Vivid Seats' table of the NFL's 25 most-expensive games in 2014. That list is topped by the Nov. 2 game featuring Peyton Manning's Broncos at Tom Brady's Patriots. Fans that don't yet hold tickets for that game should be prepared to pay $495 on the secondary market.
The San Francisco 49ers appear eight times in the list of the 25 most-expensive games of the year with an average price for those games of $376.25 each. No team offers more comfort to those ticket brokers than the Niners. They boost ticket prices of their opponents by nearly 45 percent.