Personal seat licenses further alienating the average fan

BY DOUG McKENZIE Correspondent

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve going to live sporting events with my father. I think that holds true for a lot of people, especially in the tri-state area, where there are so many professional franchises in a variety of sports.

As a Mets fan, I spent countless hours at Shea Stadium, a place that my father would also find a way to bring me to when my beloved Miami Dolphins came to town to battle the New York Jets.

Living on the north shore of Long Island, we would, on occasion, head east to catch a New York Islanders game at the Nassau Coliseum, where Mike Bossy, Billy Smith and company were in the midst of their historic championship run of four Stanley Cups in a row in the early 1980s.

We went to professional indoor soccer games (New York Cosmos), saw a few New York Knicks games (back when they played professional basketball at Madison Square Garden), and also frequented the Garden to catch Louie Carnesecca’s St. John’s University basketball team as they battled the likes of Georgetown, Syracuse, Villanova, etc., for Big East supremacy.

I remember every single time I witnessed a live sporting event, and consider myself blessed to be able to enjoy those memories — especially now that professional sporting events have become so expensive, further separating the haves from the have-nots, and making it harder and harder for fathers to afford creating such wonderful memories for their sons and daughters.

While fans of all of the major professional sports have been complaining of rising ticket prices for quite some time now, the New York Giants have actually managed to turn up the volume of those cries with the introduction of Personal Seat Licenses for season tickets for their new stadium, set to open in 2010. (The Jets are expected to make a similar introduction in the near future.)

A PSL is a one-time payment for the permanent control of a seat for Giants home games. It provides the seat PSL owners with control of successorship for their tickets and the right to buy them as long as they, or their designee, wishes, and as long as the Giants play in the new stadium. The PSL stays active as long as the PSL owners buy the season tickets.

All net proceeds from the sale of the PSLs will be used for the construction of the new stadium, with the team owners picking up half the tab of the estimated $1.6 billion project.

So rather than turn to the taxpayers to help fund the construction of a new 82,500- seat facility (something the owners are proud to trumpet), the Giants have turned to the season-ticket holders, who were already paying exorbitant amounts for their season tickets.

The prices for these PSLs range from $20,000 per seat to $1,000 per seat, with ticket prices also rising substantially at the new stadium.

The problem, in the eyes of many current season-ticket holders who may not be able to afford their tickets in the new stadium, is that none of them asked for a new stadium. While the current Giants Stadium may not have all the amenities of some of the more modernized complexes, it remains a great place to view a football game. And with a sport as popular and rich in tradition as the National Football League, the on-the-field product will always be infinitely more important to a team’s fan base than the luxuries offered in the team’s stadium.

A friend of mine has been a Giants season ticket holder for the past 15 years. And while he plans to pay the $10,000 (in three payments) for the PSLs on his two seats, he has asked me not to mention his name, since he is still trying to discover a way to hide his looming purchase from his wife.

“She’d go nuts if she knew what I’m going to have to pay to keep my seats,” he said. “We can’t afford the 10 grand, plus the cost of the tickets (which should be about $120 each, per game, or approximately $2,400 for the season for both tickets). But I’m not about to give up my tickets. I’ll find a way.”

As part of the purchasing process, he will have to select four PSL zones (in order of preference) where he would like his new seats to be. The seat assignments will be based on a combination of his preferences, current location and account tenure in Giants Stadium. So in other words, he needs to shell out the $10,000 and hope for the best.

Another friend and current season-ticket holder is facing a $40,000 price tag for a pair of PSLs on his field-level tickets, plus the $160 per ticket for all 10 home games (eight regular season plus two preseason games). He does not plan to keep his tickets at that price.

“This is a great way to turn one of the great fan-based stadium crowds into a corporate gathering of guys who are rooting for the team because Eli (Manning) is Peyton’s brother, and they won a Super Bowl last year,” this disgruntled fan said. “What about the fans who sat through Kurt Warner in December? Or the breakdown in the playoffs the year before against Carolina?

“It’s an absolute travesty and I hope something is done about it. Otherwise, [the owners] should be ashamed of themselves. Beers are $9, for God’s sake.”

The Giants had to know that this announcementwould be met with criticism, especially amid today’s concerns with a struggling economy.

It all leads back to my original thought — who can afford to take their kids to the ballpark anymore? With the prices of tickets, combined with the aforementioned ridiculous vending prices at the stadiums, it could cost you upward of $500 to take a family of four to any type of professional sporting event.

While owners are steadfast in arguing that the market demands that the fans contribute to meeting the rising operating costs of their franchises, the bottom line is that many people who are struggling to pay their own bills every month cannot justify spending several hundred dollars on a three-hour sporting event.

So my message to the owners of our local professional sports franchises is this: be carefulwhen putting the burden of covering your rising operational costs on your ticket holders. Each time you do so, you alienate more and more loyal fans who can no longer afford to foot the bill.

And while you may still be able to fill your stadiums on a regular basis, it will be a different crowd than what you’ve become accustomed to over the years. While this is rapidly becoming a corporate world, there are some things that should remain the property of the common man.

Like the ability to take your kid to a football game without jeopardizing your financial stability.

I realize in the grand scheme of things, with all the problems in the world, this issue may all seem a bit trivial to some. But like I said, I remember every sporting event I ever went to with my father. And you can’t quantify the value of those memories.

Let’s not make days like those a memory altogether.