Press Box

Trying a Hard Sell to Overcome Personal Seat Licenses

7/19/2009

New York Post

Richard Wilner

The New York Giants are cutting the price on many of the remaining unsold tickets in their new Meadowlands stadium by about 37 percent in hopes of re-igniting interest.

The move comes after a year-long, Herculean marketing job that sold all but roughly 4,000 seats in their new, 82,500-seat stadium, during which a sagging economy and the $1,000-to-$20,000 cost of the personal seat license fee attached to each ticket dampened demand.

Marked-down club seat tickets, which carry a $7,500 personal seat license fee, which will remain unchanged, will now cost fans $250 per game instead of $400 a game -- a savings of $1,500 a season for the 10-game slate.

"I think it's the right thing to do," co-owner John Mara said last week, while standing in one of the marked-down sections of the new stadium as roughly 1,000 construction workers set about readying the floor beneath the field, installing the seats and finishing other tasks.

Construction of the $1.6 billion stadium (half of the cost of which will be paid by itsco-owners, the New York Jets) is five months ahead of schedule, Mara said. It could be finished as soon as November and will open for the 2010 season.

In a letter to season ticket holders that began arriving in mailboxes yesterday, the team said it decided to cut the price on 1,570 seats in the four corners of the mezzanine level after executives walked the stadium, sat in the recently-installed seats and decided they were not exactly as previously marketed.

"Those seats are outside the field of play, which means they are more of an end zone seat than a sideline seat," the letter reads. "After having an opportunity to sit in those seats, we feel strongly that we should create a different price point."

The Giants, co-owned by Mara and Steve Tisch, have sold out every game in their 33-year history at Giants Stadium, thanks to a legendary 140,000-person waiting list. The team has already made one pass through the massive list and will make a second pass this summer with news of the price cut.

If that doesn't sell the remaining seats -- scattered throughout the lower and middle levels -- the team has not ruled out mounting a public marketing campaign. If it comes to that, it will mark the first time in a generation -- about 33 years -- that Giants season tickets would become widely available.

"The important thing to know is that there isn't any public money funding this stadium, like there is in other cities," Mara said with pride. "The only way you can build a stadium in this region is with PSLs."

While there has been some fan pushback to the PSLs, evidence from around the league shows the value of the licenses has increased substantially.

Kyle Burks, the president of STR Marketplace, an online PSL marketplace, said only 2 percent of tickets are sold each, creating heightened demand for little product. It's not unlike the high prices created by many teams chasing a few free agents, he noted.

The Jets, who are currently soliciting PSL payment from their current season ticket holders, have not said how many seats they have sold.

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