Thousands of loyal Seahawks fans just won the lottery.

The question is: Do they follow their hearts, or their wallets?

The franchise drew names from among its 40,000 season-ticket holders Sunday night. The winners have until 7 p.m. Thursday to buy two of the team's roughly 11,800 tickets to Super Bowl XL at face value, about $600 each. They may shell out thousands more for airfare and accommodations in Detroit for the Feb. 5 game.

Or they can cash in, reselling their tickets through brokers and Web sites on the frenzied secondary market for the ultimate sports spectacle.

Despite an average market price of more than $3,000 reported by Internet ticket sites Monday, some economists said true fans will only sell if they absolutely have to.

"These tickets are usually not resold, especially by Hawks fans," said John Vrooman, professor at Vanderbilt University who teaches a class on sports economics. "It would be like messing with the Hawks' mojo now to sell a piece of the action."

This is no cold economic calculus of preferences, profits and ability to pay. Emotions are involved.

"The 'I was there when the Hawks rocked the Steelers' effect is priceless," Vrooman said, revealing his bias. "There is no substitute."

Is there?

We're talking about the potential of a 400 percent profit. And the game is still 12 days away. Prices could go up, or they could fall.

Brokers rarely pay face value for tickets. They scour the Internet for lottery winners who can't go, corporations that aren't using all their tickets, or football players and coaches who sometimes buy tickets just to resell them -- a practice the NFL has cracked down on. More>>>

SUPER BOWL TICKETS

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