NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Forget the predictions of odds makers and sportswriters: the Philadelphia Eagles are the team most likely to make it to the Super Bowl this year.
That's the prediction, anyway, of investors buying Super Bowl futures with Ticket Reserve, a Chicago-based Web site that sells tickets using an innovative online futures market.
Here's how it works: An investor buys the rights to see a specific team if it makes it to the championship game, such as the Super Bowl, or the NCAA Final Four.
The investor can hold onto that contract. If the team is successful, he gets the right to buy the ticket at face price. If the team is eliminated before the big game, the futures contract becomes worthless.
Before a game is played, the holder of a futures contract can offer it for sale at any asking price they want. Potential buyers can bid anything, too. If the bid and asking price meet, the transaction is processed online.
As the NFL season starts, the most expensive futures contract is for the NFC's Philadelphia Eagles, who have an offer price of $300, and a top bid of $120.
The AFC's Patriots are the next most costly future -- $250 offer price and a top bid of $85.
The current bids and ask prices for the futures line up teams roughly -- but not exactly -- like those of Vegas bookmakers. The Mirage/MGM sports book currently has the Patriots as the favorite to win a conference championship, with 5 to 2 odds.
The Eagles are second best, odds at 7 to 2, as are the Indianapolis Colts. But the Colts' future is a relative bargain, with a top bid of $50, and an asking price of $100.
Sports Illustrated's preseason prediction puts the Patriots and Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Seattle's futures have the sixth highest bid price at $25. The current asking price is only $50. Vegas odds for Seattle making it to the Super Bowl are 6 to 1.
Ticket Reserve started selling futures last year, and moved a block of 100 Super Bowl tickets to 50 successful Patriots bidders, who were paying about $900 just before the Super Bowl. Another 50 successful Carolina Panthers bidders paid about $675.
Range of options
Ticket Reserve CEO Rick Harmon said that he believes most of the people bid on the futures contract are doing so with the intention of using the ticket if the team makes it to the game. But a certain percentage of those bidding do so as a form of gambling, looking to make money by winning a ticket worth much more than its face value. (Harmon said that many who start off bidding for a chance to go to a game end up selling when they see the profit they can make.)
"If a guy spent $50 on a contract today, and that contract becomes worth $1,500, he may decide he wants that big screen TV to watch games at home instead of being there," said Harmon.
Bidders and sellers of the contract each pay Ticket Reserve a commission of 5 percent of the transaction cost when the future trades hands. Otherwise there are no fees.
Ticket Reserve set offering prices for all 32 teams when it started selling this year's futures in May, with eight teams having an $100 offering price -- Philadelphia and New England as well as Carolina, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis and Tennessee.
Nine teams had offering prices at $30 -- Chicago, Houston, Jacksonville, Arizona, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, New Orleans and San Diego.
Most of those long shots have yet to get a bid for their futures. The two that did get a bid, Chicago and Houston, priced below Ticket Reserve's initial offer price.
In fact, only the Eagles have a bid price above the initial offer price, giving holders of those futures a chance to make a profit before the first kickoff.
The Detroit Lions have the distinction of being the only team with an asking price less than the initial offer price. That means a holder of Lions futures is already looking to bail out at a loss -- before the season even begins.
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