DENVER -- The fervor around the Mile High City over Sunday's AFC Championship Game reached this zany peak yesterday: The market for Steelers-Broncos tickets has gone through the roof ... of your mouth.

Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post Broncos fan Dan Norman got many e-mails offering great deals on tickets to the AFC championship game this weekend. He knows quite a few people who have been scammed for large sums of money by people offering tickets online. On screen are two tickets Mr. Norman found that are currently listed on an auction site. Click photo for larger image.

"Does someone in your family need wisdom teeth extracted?" began one plea on craigslist.com yesterday. "Will trade extractions (anesthesia included) for 2 lower or 4 upper level tickets to the AFC Championship game. Approximate value of surgery: $1,800-$2,100."

Such are the deals that people are willing to make for seats in Invesco Field come 1 p.m. Sunday Denver time, 3 p.m. Pittsburgh time. It doesn't stop at dental work.

Want a brand-new, unopened Xbox 360? Don't wait in store lines or accept rain checks, for here on craigslist.com is a person who doesn't care where the potential seat may be, but the self-professed "hard-core Broncos fan" will trade you the hot video game box for it.

Want special tutoring in physics, astronomy or mathematics at the University of Colorado in nearby Boulder? Don't waste time with graduate students who "may not be qualified to teach this material," the ad pitched, but here's a Ph.D-holding University of Colorado faculty member in astrophysics willing to tutor your child for "the ENTIRE semester" in exchange for two tickets.

It's a seller's market, and the sellers are reporting record numbers.

Yesterday there were 13 pages of ads on eBay, 62 classified ads from buyers and sellers in the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post, roughly 135 ads on craigslist.com (a popular online swap meet for jobs, housing, goods and people), and just 250 tickets remaining at the big-seller StubHub.com. There, on that large, national ticket brokerage, the Steelers-Broncos game set the season high for gross sales and increased the mark for the highest-average ticket yet this season, at $543, some $200 more than the going rate for the Carolina-Seattle NFC Championship Game.

Fear not, Steelers fans, you are eligible for such sales, even though there's an occasional craigslist.com ad like the one yesterday showing a photograph of a brutal hit by Broncos Pro Bowl linebacker Al Wilson and imploring, in all capital letters: "Hey, all of you trying to make a killing. ... Don't sell to Steelers fans! Or else you'll get hit like this!"

The Broncos organization, unlike the Cincinnati Bengals and Indianapolis Colts, hasn't asked their fans to withhold secondary ticket sales to the well-traveled Steeler Nation. Team officials talked about the prospect, but the discussion lasted roughly a nanosecond or two before it was dismissed.

"Our fans are the same as Steelers fans," Broncos spokesman Jim Saccomano said. "Except when they look in the mirror, it comes back orange and blue."

The team did narrow the scope of the sales audience Sunday night when it placed 15,000 available seats on sale at prices between $73 and $400, mostly tickets left behind by season-ticket holders who didn't renew. Tickets were sold to fans within area codes of the Rocky Mountain region, Mr. Saccomano said: western Nebraska, southern Wyoming, Montana and Colorado. The tickets were sold out within a half-hour.

Some ticket buyers already have fallen prey to scams, so Broncos officials reminded fans about the dangers of ordering from somewhere other than the NFL or its partner, Ticketmaster. The Denver Post quoted a Denver on-air radio personality who said he wired $600 to an eBay seller and failed to hear back, complaining about the ruse on the air -- and stirring a call-in and e-mail response from others who lost money to bogus offers.

Tickets from a more reputable broker -- one that guarantees sales and accepts credit cards -- or a familiar source seem to work for many fans, and it hasn't slowed the feverish pitch.

Stub Hub has sold 33 percent of its AFC championship game tickets to people in Colorado, with California second at 11 percent, New Mexico -- where there is a sizeable Steelers fan-club contingent -- 7 percent and Pennsylvania fourth at 5 percent. However, Broncos fans, similar to the Steeler Nation, hail from all over. Broncos officials say one Arkansas family travels to every home game.

"Gosh, wow, this is the highest I've seen it," said Stub Hub public relations director Sean Pate. The top price paid was $2,000, with most remaining tickets listed between $452 and $1,638. Last week, the average Patriots-Broncos seat went for $162.

"For a team and a city [Denver] that last week didn't want to pay very much... now tickets are going for four times that. Pretty odd.

"Denver-Pittsburgh is exploding right now," Mr. Pate said. "If you want to, you could draw the correlation that Pittsburgh is a big game ... and a lot of people around Denver think they can win this game."

Not so for the pockets of Steelers supporters living in exile in what locals call Bronco Country.

Billy Palmosina is a Green Tree guy who moved to Golden, Colo., and has been a Coors Brewery employee for more than 20 years. He gets together with dozens of Steelers fans every game day in suburban Arvada at Buffalo Wild Wings, a business that now serves Iron City beer and sells Terrible Towels. Mr. Palmosina wants to stress: He has no Invesco Field seats.

"I got all my relatives calling me now, and I say, 'Hey, I'm like the rest of them. I'm on eBay,' " said Mr. Palmosina. He's trying to organize the Buffalo Wild Wings crew to join him at Invesco Field on Sunday for a Steelers tailgate party.