Few tickets are more elusive than a ticket to the granddaddy of all sporting events -- the Super Bowl. The World Series, the NBA Finals, Bristol all have to take a backseat to the annual final grudge match of the pigskin. Parties sprout up across the country in its name, and advertisers shell out untold millions just to be associated with it. It is a grand event to watch amongst friends in hi-def surround sound, but nothing quite matches the deafening roar of a touchdown like being at the game. If you ever thought going to a Super Bowl was akin to dating Gisele, you're wrong. Tom Brady isn't taking his mitts off of Victoria's worst kept Secret (would you?), but there are several avenues that you can tap in order to get tickets to this coveted event. Let's take a look at what are options are.

Distribution: The best place to start our search is to look at who gets the Super Bowl tickets from the league. The participating team from each the AFC and the NFC have a lock on 17.5% of the tickets for each team so there are a third of the tickets accounted for. The host team, in this year's case the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is allocated 5% of the tickets. The remaining NFL teams get to divvy up a block of tickets (34.8%) between them. High rolling box owners, corporate bigwigs, you get the picture. Finally, the NFL distributes the remaining 25.2 percent to corporate sponsors and to the general public through the lottery.

NFL Super Bowl Lottery: Your best chance at scoring tickets for face value is through the NFL's Super Bowl Lottery that is held each year. Lottery entries are accepted from February 1 through June 1 and winning applicants are notified via mail in October or November. In order to be considered, an entry with your name, address, phone number, and email address must be sent certified or registered mail to:

Super Bowl Random Drawing
P.O. Box 49140
Strongsville, OH 44149-0140

Season Ticket Holder: The next most logical place to look is at season ticket holders. If you had a full season ticket plan to the New England Patriots last year, you would have had a 17.5% chance of scoring a pair of Super Bowl tickets. Same goes for the New York Giants. So supporting your team by ponying up for season tickets certainly gives you a leg up in the process if the wins and losses happen to shine in your favor. Also the host team has 5% to distribute to its season ticket holder base. The NFL loves to park the big game in sunny locales -- think Miami, Tampa, Glendale and New Orleans -- as well as new stadiums -- Dallas, Detroit and Indianapolis.

First Dibz: The website, formerly known as TicketReserve, has created an interesting marketplace for high demand event tickets. They let you place a bid on what you would be willing to pay for Super Bowl tickets if your team made it to the big enchilada. There's one big gotcha here. If your team doesn't make it, you get nothing. This is a good way to get discounted tickets, since the market seesaws as teams rack up wins and losses through the season, but the risk involved puts this option squarely in the category of gambling.

Ticket Broker: Ticket brokers create a market based on the supply and demand for a certain event. Naturally, supply is severely restricted to the Super Bowl and demand is through the roof. Some might turn on instinct to eBay, but be very weary of sellers dealing such high dollar items. High feedback ratings (99% and above) are essential. Also look at their feedback transactions to ensure they are a seasoned broker (1000+) and not someone who's been dealing beanie babies or worse got their account hacked. We'd actually shy away from eBay (ditto for Craigslist) all together given the risk involved on a transaction of this size. Definitely steer clear of the street scalpers. Last year's Super Bowl in Glendale had multiple instances of people selling bogus tickets to unsuspecting buyers. If you haven't checked them out yet, I'd recommend using Stubhub. They are much better options since all tickets are guaranteed to be authentic and arrive in time for the event. Can you really put a price on piece of mind?