WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : SPOTLIGHT : HOT TICKET

If there is no huge halftime show, how can it be like a Super Bowl?

Well, that--and several million television viewers--might be the only thing that separates U.S.-Brazil from American football’s championship game, Bay Area ticket brokers say.

“It’s monster big,” David Green of the Best Seats agency in Lafayette said in the San Francisco Examiner. “It’s the biggest sporting event we’ve ever seen here. Bigger than the Super Bowl, bigger than the World Series.

“It’s more than just the game. People want to go to be part of the whole scene. It’s Mardi Gras outside the game. It’s the Olympic spirit.”

David Gazay of Peninsula Box Office in Palo Alto confirmed Friday that brokers are cashing in.

The least expensive tickets, sold originally for $35, are going for $150, he said, and the most expensive tickets, sold originally for $85, are going for $275.

“Our phones haven’t stopped ringing,” he said.