NEW YORK — Reaching the Super Bowl is the hardest climb in professional sports. Losing it leaves a scar that doesn’t fade. But the NFL has a mandatory, little-known policy for the last team standing on the wrong side of the confetti: they send you home with a piece of jewelry. NFL conference championship rings are heavily guarded secrets, largely because the players who receive them want nothing to do with them.
Ahead of the Seattle Seahawks’ dominant 29-13 victory over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX earlier this month, the locker rooms buzzed with pre-game anxiety. Yet, when asked about the guaranteed conference championship ring awarded simply for winning the NFC or AFC, a shocking reality emerged. Out of more than a dozen players and coaches interviewed, only two knew the runner-up hardware even existed.
The “Participation Trophy” Stigma
The NFL operations manual explicitly dictates that the losing team in the Super Bowl receives an award for their conference title. The league fronts between $5,000 and $7,000 per Super Bowl ring (up to 150 rings), and caps the runner-up ring at exactly half that cost.
Jason Arasheben, CEO of Jason of Beverly Hills, builds these multi-thousand-dollar consolations. He recently designed the San Francisco 49ers’ 2024 NFC Championship rings following their brutal overtime loss to the Chiefs. Appraised at $10,000 and packed with 1.70 carats of white diamonds, the rings come in a lighted box with a rotating platform. Arasheben treats losing teams with extreme caution. You do not call an athlete the morning after the biggest loss of his life to ask about ring sizing.
Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Cam Jurgens learned about the tradition the hard way. Four months after dropping Super Bowl LVII to Kansas City, Jurgens saw “Ring Ceremony” pop up on the team schedule. He was furious.
“What the hell is the ring ceremony for? We lost. It felt like a participation trophy that I had to pay taxes on. It’s a reminder that, hey, you made it all the way to the mountaintop and failed.”
— Cam Jurgens, Philadelphia Eagles Offensive Lineman
Jurgens shoved that 2023 ring into a dark closet. Today, the bitter taste is gone. He proudly flashes the hardware from Super Bowl LIX, earned after the Eagles exacted revenge and crushed the Chiefs 40-22 in February 2025.
A Secondary Market Goldmine
While players bury the rings in safes or closets, collectors pay top dollar for them. The emotional weight of a conference championship ring creates a bizarre secondary market.
Travis Kelce didn’t mince words about his 2020 AFC Championship ring: “I’m only interested in Super Bowl rings.” That exact piece of jewelry eventually hit the block at Goldin Auctions, hammering for a massive $34,404. Patrick Mahomes, who now holds two AFC rings from the Chiefs’ losses in Super Bowl LV and LIX, locks his away in a safe, using them purely as fuel for the next season.
The demand remains scorching hot. Just two weeks ago at the Super Bowl LX Live Auction hosted by Hunt Auctions, Hall of Famer John Riggins’ 1983 NFC Championship ring sold for $22,325.
Changing the Culture
Not every athlete views the silver tier with disgust. Don Beebe, an anchor of the Buffalo Bills teams that suffered four consecutive Super Bowl defeats in the early 1990s, cherishes his collection. Teammate Steve Tasker called the jewelry “weird,” noting how difficult it is to look at something so stunning yet so loaded with heartbreak. But to that Bills squad, those rings represent a bond forged through historic, unprecedented endurance.
Current players are starting to adopt that mindset. Just days before lifting the Lombardi Trophy in Santa Clara, Seahawks guard Anthony Bradford reflected on the sheer brutality of an NFL season.
“This is the end of the row right here. It’s very hard to get here. Top of the top, best of the best.”
— Anthony Bradford, Seattle Seahawks Guard
Playoff Implications / What’s Next
As the league rolls into the 2026 offseason, the Patriots head back to Foxborough to process their Super Bowl LX defeat. In a few months, the NFL will quietly deliver their AFC Championship rings. Patriots quarterback Drake Maye and his squad will face the exact same choice Jurgens, Mahomes, and Kelce faced before them: lock the ring away in shame, or use the diamonds as a daily reminder of the unfinished business waiting in 2027.
Expect New England’s front office to use the sting of that incoming jewelry to motivate a locker room that just got a brutal lesson in championship football from Mike Macdonald’s ferocious Seattle defense.
