Michael Bidwill claims Vikings-Rams have created “Taylor Swift-like” ticket demand (it hasn’t)

Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill deserves a lot of credit for opening his team’s stadium and practice facilities to the Rams, who have been displaced by wildfires. But his benevolence doesn’t operate as a license to sprinkle another word that starts with “B”.

Bidwill spoke to Ian Rapoport of NFL Media about the decision to surrender the building to the Vikings and the Rams for Monday night’s finale of the no-longer-Super Wild Card round. Summarizing the conversation during an appearance on NFL Network’s GameDay Morning, Rapoport said that Bidwill called the demand for tickets “Taylor Swift-like.”

Um. It’s not.

We found seats on StubHub for as little as $110. And on SeatGeek, the official legal scalping partner of the Cardinals, two tickets go for $176 each.

During Taylor Swift’s recently-completed “Eras” tour, one person made $20,000 by reselling four tickets to a show.

In the article that accompanies Rapoport’s on-air report, it’s apparent Bidwill wasn’t referring to price but to speed of sale.

“It was pretty clear early within the first 12 minutes,” Bidwill said. “It was like the pace of a Taylor Swift-type sale of a concert that was, it was really fast.”

Of course, that’s how it works. Resellers ordinarily have algorithms that gobble up all of the tickets, and then they make them available to the consumers who can’t box out the bots.

And Bidwill has a reason to hype the event. He’d like to goose the resale market, since he (and the rest of the league) is as in bed with legal scalpers as they are with legal bookies.

Bidwill also gave the step-right-up! effort a little extra kick by claiming that this doesn’t usually happen for neutral-site games. But it happens every year, multiple times, for games to be played in Europe.

So, yes, the game is sold out. But, no, it’s not all that hard to get tickets if you want to go, because many good seats are still available. And the Cardinals would prefer that you purchase yours on SeatGeek.