Some Rams fans win lottery for lower-cost Super Bowl tickets

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Usually, when you win a lottery you walk away with a lot of money.

But when you win a Super Bowl ticket lottery, get ready to pony up some serious cash.

Rams season ticket holder Mary Masciotra did just that, paying roughly $1,200 apiece for two tickets to the Super Bowl in Atlanta when her name was picked by the Rams Sunday night in a ticket lottery.

But aside from the pricey cost of admission, she says she's doing it on the cheap, going with a friend.

"We booked a hotel with points and we got our airfare, so we're doing it for less than $2,000 for the whole deal," said Masciotra.

The Van Nuys resident is no normal Rams fan.

Her front yard is adorned with an inflatable Rams football helmet, her front steps sport a "Rams Country" street sign, her living room is speckled with Rams blankets and she's wearing a Rams sweatshirt, Rams hat, Rams earrings and Rams shoes.

When she says she's been a Rams fan since the late 1970s, there's little reason to doubt her.

Even when the team abandoned Los Angeles for St. Louis in 1994, Masciotra didn't lose faith.

"A lot of people said 'Why are you still rooting for them? They left!' I was like 'That's my team!' So the opportunity to see the Rams in the Super Bowl is priceless to me."

But with ticket prices that high, sometimes not winning the ticket lottery is a win as well.

"I'm OK with it," said Rams season ticket holder Rich Cure. "You know who's really OK with it? My wife is OK with it. Because she knows we would have found some way to make it happen."

Instead, Cure says he'll be watching the big game at home with friends having dodged the $1,200 per ticket conundrum.

Of course, had he been able to buy the tickets he could have resold them for a tidy profit.

Online ticket reseller StubHub shows the cheapest Super Bowl tickets listed at more than $3,000 apiece.

The most expensive, a sky box suite, is listed for $550,000.

But don't expect Masciotra to hock her tickets.

"I've had a couple friends and my brother say, 'You should sell the tickets' and I'm like 'No, I can't," she said. "If it were just a regular Super Bowl, I could do it. But not with my Rams! No, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't do it."