I’ve been a fan of the Carolina Panthers since 1994 when the team was born. I grew up on Wesley Walls, Sam Mills, Lamar Lathon, Kevin Greene, Kerry Collins, Muhsin Muhammad and on and on. My living room is decked out in Panthers memorabilia. I make the more than six-hour drive at least twice a year to attend games at Bank of America Stadium, but now that my team is in the Super Bowl I can’t go support them because of the outrageous price of tickets.

As the Panthers’ lead grew on Sunday, I began looking for any reasonably priced ticket. I didn’t expect to find any for less than $1500, but to my surprise, the cheapest was over $5,000. On a sportswriter’s salary with 2-year-old twins, there was no way that I could swing that amount of money. Instead, I’ll be relegated to a family Super Bowl party like the majority of the real NFL fans.

It’s sad that the same fans who pay for tickets, concessions and apparel at stadiums throughout the league are then essentially banished from following their team to the Super Bowl because it’s reserved for the upper-class. Instead of diehard football fans, the stands will be filled with celebrities, executives and millionaires who are more worried about networking and being a part of the crowd than they are about the actual game.

Despite having $13 billion in revenue, the NFL continues to be more concerned with maximizing their bottom line as opposed to making concessions to the real fans of the league. Sadly, things will only get worse as the high-rollers continue to foot the bill for Roger Goodell.