Seeing the Buffalo Bills play the Miami Dolphins in Toronto's Rogers Centre in December will cost an average of three to four times as much as an NFL home game at Ralph Wilson Stadium this year.
But with 180,000 individual requests for tickets and just 30,000 seats available to the public, there seems little doubt Canada's first regular-season NFL game will be a sellout.
"This is a premium event and the first time in the history of Canada you can take the subway to a regular-season NFL game," said Adrian Montgomery, general manager of the Bills in Toronto series. "Having said that, we know the NFL is fuelled by the fans and it was important for us to have a price point available to every one."
Of the 54,000 seats at Rogers Centre available for NFL games, just 700 will be set at the low-end price of $55, with roughly 4,000 priced under $100.
The overall average ticket price of $183 - excluding VIP seating - dwarfs not just the $51 (U.S.) average price in Buffalo but right across the NFL, where the highest average ticket price last season was the New England Patriots' mark of $91 per seat.
In Toronto, seats in the lower bowl between the end zones and the 20-yard lines will be $295 (Canadian) each, with pricing for roughly 9,000 VIP seats between the 20-yard lines and throughout the second deck still to be announced.
In Buffalo, prime seats between the 20-yard lines go for $77 (U.S.), while seats between the end zones and 20-yard lines go for $66.
All of which speaks to the vast difference between the wealth of the markets in Buffalo and Toronto and the fact organizers of the December game are confident there is a huge appetite for regular-season NFL football in Canada.
"We're thrilled with the demand but it just validates Toronto's reputation as a world-class sports town," Montgomery said.
The Bills will play five regular-season and three preseason games in Toronto between now and 2012. Buffalo's first preseason match north of the border is Aug. 14 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Seeing the price of tickets in Toronto is likely to heighten fear in Buffalo that the relocation of eight games over five years is merely the beginning of the Bills' eventual move to Toronto.
The first group of Rogers Centre Bills tickets will be offered to randomly selected registrants starting May 21, with fans having the option to purchase three- or eight-game packages.
The Bills, playing in the league's second-smallest market, had the NFL's lowest average ticket price at slightly more than $46 (U.S.) last season. The club will receive a total of $78-million (Canadian) from organizers for the eight Toronto-based games.
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