Many a Patriots fan has said the always-dangerous Baltimore Ravens are the last team anyone wants to see in Saturday’s divisional-round playoff game.
Their wallets tell a different story.
The average price for a ticket to this weekend’s showdown at Gillette Stadium is $336.68 on the secondary market, according to TiqIQ, an online marketplace of tickets from major resellers. That’s nearly three times the face value and 26 percent higher than what fans paid for last year’s divisional-round matchup with the Indianapolis Colts, whom New England would have faced again this postseason if Baltimore had failed to advance.
It seems fans do want to see the Patriots play the Ravens after all, and are willing to pay big bucks to do so. The same factors that make the Ravens fearsome also make them a draw.
“The bye gives fans an extra week of getting revved up, and once it becomes clear that the Ravens will be the foe, that’s a big stimulus,” said Stephen A. Greyser, a sports marketing specialist at Harvard Business School.
Saturday will mark the rivals’ fourth playoff meeting in the last six seasons. Baltimore won two of the previous three, even though New England had the home-field advantage each time.
In the one contest the Patriots won, the AFC Championship game three years ago, tight end Rob Gronkowski suffered an ankle injury. He played in the Super Bowl two weeks later, but was ineffective, and some Patriots fans still grumble that their team would have won the championship if Gronk hadn’t been hurt against the Ravens.
Combine the on-field history with a pattern of off-field trash talk — over the years Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs has called Patriots coach Bill Belichick arrogant and criticized quarterback Tom Brady’s hair and “smug attitude” — and you get a macho melodrama that spectators will pay a premium to watch in person.
Price hikes are standard at playoff time. Even parking gets more expensive, as many owners of private lots near the stadium tack on an extra $10 for spaces that normally cost $40 to $50.
At face value, the Patriots already have the priciest tickets in the NFL, at an average of $122 apiece, according to Team Marketing Report, a sports industry tracking firm in Wilmette, Ill.
When the postseason rolls around and tickets hit the resale market, they often go for more than twice as much — even at this relatively early stage, with the Patriots still needing three wins to bring home the Lombardi Trophy.
The going rate for tickets to last year’s divisional round game against the Colts was $266.90; the season before that, when the Houston Texans came to Foxborough, it was $290.97.
But the Ravens — the most scrutinized franchise in the league this season, thanks to the suspension of running back Ray Rice for domestic violence — push prices to another level.
The price of tickets to Saturday’s Patriots-Ravens game is the highest among four playoff contests this weekend, even though two of the other home teams (Seattle and Denver) played in last year’s Super Bowl, and the third (Green Bay) has the most famous stadium in the sport, Lambeau Field.
The last Patriots opponent to drive the average ticket price over $300 in this round of the playoffs was the Broncos after the 2011 season, led at the time by quarterback Tim Tebow, who was at the height of his brief but sensational stardom.
Callum Borchers can be reached at callum.borchers@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @callumborchers.