Giants Outline PSL Plan For Meadowlands Stadium, Jets To Follow

Giants Outline PSL Plan For New Stadium

The NFL Giants beginning Friday will send out PSL brochures in batches of 5,000, a process that will take seven months. The PSL prices ranges from $1,000-20,000. There are PSLs also for $4,000, $5,000, $7,500, $10,000 and $12,500. The PSLs give the holder a permanent right to the seat as long as the Giants play in the stadium. The brochure also disclosed the team plans a "Coach's Club" seat section at field level with an outside patio behind the Giants bench. The team will conduct postgame interviews in that club. The average ticket price will be $157 in 2010 when the $1.6B stadium opens, although excluding the club seat ducats, the average price falls to $112. Currently, tickets range from $85-115, the team said. The PSLs will contribute $371M, but after taxes, the team will keep about half that, said co-Owner John Mara. That will amount to about one-third of the Giants' contribution to the stadium (Daniel Kaplan, SportsBusiness Journal). Meanwhile, the Jets Thursday said in a statement, "We are developing our PSL plan that we will announce at the end of August" (NEWSDAY, 7/18).

ON THE HOT SEATS: In N.Y., Richard Sandomir reports the Giants are "giving existing season-ticket holders four preferences for where they wish to be in the new stadium, including where they now sit." Giants co-Owner John Mara "knows that people who cannot afford the more expensive licenses will move to cheaper perches or leave entirely." Mara: "If that happens, it will make me sad, but I think we've provided enough options for people who want to stay there" (N.Y. TIMES, 7/18). View the PSL Zones sale timeline and pricing schedule for the new stadium (Bergen RECORD, 7/18). 

GOOD INVESTMENT? In Westchester, Rick Carpiniello notes one of the "popular pro-PSL theories is that once you pay the one-time fee, you control your seats for as long as the Giants play at the new stadium. You can transfer them or sell them to whomever you want." Some view that as an "investment opportunity," though Mara said that he "wouldn't encourage anybody to buy PSLs as investments" (Westchester JOURNAL NEWS, 7/18). In New Jersey, John Brennan notes if the demand for Giants tickets in 2011, a year after the stadium opens, remains "anywhere near what it is today," fans who pay $1,000 for an upper-deck PSL "may be able to seek far more for the PSLs on the open market" (Bergen RECORD, 7/18).

GIANT BACKLASH: In N.Y., Ralph Vacchiano notes Mara has received "plenty of complaints from Giants fans" over the PSLs, and some of the letters "were blunt, telling him his late father [Giants co-Owner Wellington Mara] would never have allowed this to happen." Mara: "I have received a few of those, and believe me I feel that. But my father wasn't faced with this kind of debt on a new building like this either" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 7/18). Mara: "I don't particularly like having to come out with a PSL program, but I also know it's in the long-term best interest of this franchise" (NEWSDAY, 7/18). However, the Westchester JOURNAL NEWS' Carpiniello writes, "Does anybody else think, 'How do you buy something you can't afford and then ask somebody else to pay for it?' This smells of extortion" (Westchester JOURNAL NEWS, 7/18). In N.Y., Clemente Lisi writes of the PSL plan, "Call it a Giant rip-off" (N.Y. POST, 7/18). In Newark, Steve Politi writes the Giants are "selling off a large part of what made them unique. For decades, they were a mom-and-pop shop that just happened to be part of the richest sports league on the planet." Politi: "This is how it works in pro sports. It's not your loyalty that matters to teams any more, it's the size of your wallet. For most of their existence, the Giants were an exception. Not any more" (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 7/18).