Beware Promises of Super Bowl XLV Tix

​I know you know better, still ...

This morning, a good Friend of Unfair Park forwarded along an e-mail he received from a rather legit-looking company based up north promising that it can take care of all your ticketing and hotel needs for the Super Bowl when it comes to Cowboys Stadium next year. Long story short: If I read my professional-looking proposals correctly, the guy wants a $10,000 deposit to put you in line so that when the National Football League starts releasing tickets and hotel rooms, hey, you've already got a place.

But this is tip-off that all ain't kosher: "We have already started to take bookings for the event from Dallas clients, because the NFL projects the 2011 Super Bowl to be one of their biggest, since it has not been held in the region in a number of years." You don't say.

"We've been seeing e-mails like these for months," says North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee vice president and COO Tara Green, though she tells Unfair Park this morning that "they come in waves" that more or less stopped at the start of football season. "The NFL has their own program for packaging tickets called NFL On Location, and there are four, five companies licensed by the NFL to sell those packages, but they're still putting together assets and inventories, like hotels, before they even start packages here." Among the licensed companies is a locally based one: Dallas Fan Fares.

"There's an entire cottage industry that comes with the Super Bowl, where companies try to ambush the NFL and make a quick buck on a high-profile event," Green says. "Our job is to make sure the community knows where the real opportunities are and protect them from those that aren't. ... And some may be legit down the road, but it's too soon."