From what I understand, they’re not. And I don’t really get it. (If I’m wrong on this, someone please speak up.)
Last time out I mentioned that the Mets and Yankees might have to deal with a decline in corporate demand for tickets, which could negatively impact prices on their high end packages. Then I caught this in yesterday’s WSJ:
The New York Jets are joining with eBay to auction off licenses to 2,000 of the best seats in the stadium the team will share with the Giants, a new approach that will test the limits of what football fans will pay for top-of-the-line seats.
While online auctions for already-purchased tickets have become common, a major U.S. sports team has never before auctioned off personal seat licenses, or PSLs. The Jets expect the licenses to go for more than $25,000 each, the price the team will charge for licenses to less-desirable seats behind the visiting team’s bench…
No one knows where the market’s ceiling is. In Texas, Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones last year set the price for licenses to 1,000 seats at the 50-yard line at $150,000 each. “We may have a few left, but that’s it,” said Brett Daniels, a Cowboys spokesman. The team is selling rights to about 80% of the seats in the 100,000-seat stadium…
On June 26, John Mara, the Giants’ chief executive, announced he needed to sell licenses for every seat in the new stadium to raise $370 million. Fans can buy the rights to seats comparable to the ones they now hold. The fixed prices start at $1,000 for the upper deck and rise to $20,000 for the field level. The tickets themselves cost $85 to $700…
But even at those prices, the Giants may be leaving money on the table, something the Jets want to avoid through their auction…
Those are pretty incredible prices. How much could the Yankees and Mets make from selling PSLs? What if they applied them to luxury suites, premium boxes, etc. This is an enormous opportunity that they appear to be missing.
On a side note, the eBay route is a brilliant play by the Jets; instead of dealing with the backlash the Giants are looking at, they can simply point to the market. I’m surprised more teams aren’t doing this for PSLs, or even high-end ticket packages.
Feedback? Write a comment, or e-mail the author at shawn(AT)squawkingbaseball.com
Add New Comment