Die Hard Sports Fan

As soon as John Mara and Steve Tisch sent out the original letter regarding PSLs to the season ticket holders, it has become the biggest story about the Giants of the summer. I’ve checked our site’s stats, and the posts about PSLs have gotten plenty of traffic. Also, those posts have had a few comments attached to each post. The feedback from Giants fans has been very bitter and deservedly so. We went on to bash the organization for wanting to implement PSLs in two posts. Then we wrote a post about the upside to PSLs, which was based on articles that we’ve come across.

The Jets keep postponing the date when they plan on informing their season ticket holders about the PSL pricing plan. However, Rich Cimini of the New York Daily News reported that Woody Johnson said the pricing plan may include a system for Jets and Giants PSL owners to “alternate events as they come along during the year - concerts, a tractor pull, whatever we have.” Johnson is clearly doing this to try to diminish the amount of heat he is going to receive when he sends the letter to the Jets’ season ticket holders. The thing that caught my attention is that Woody mentioned that this would possibly be offered to ‘Jets and Giants PSL owners’. The Giants never mentioned this before, but I’m sure that Johnson, Mara, and Tisch are all on the same page because they are sharing the stadium. This small benefit must have been a topic of discussion which is why he mentioned it. However, the article stated that “The Giants had no comment on how non-football events will be handled.”  I guess we’ll have to wait and see how the Giants will handle it…if they even do.

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Yesterday, John Mara and Steve Tisch sent out their official letter regarding the PSLs to the Giants Season Ticket Holders. The first time that they informed the Season Ticket Holders about the PSLs, I copied and pasted the entire letter because it was shocking and informative. This time, it’s not as shocking or informative so I’m going to extract the most important points. To view the letter in it’s entirety, click here.

The stadium has been designed to provide fans with an unparalleled experience on Giants game days: modernized food service, concessions and restaurants; expanded team stores; tailgate zones with improved tailgating facilities; upgraded and additional restrooms; Club seats with beautiful Club spaces; wider concourses; cutting-edge scoreboards and in-stadium technology; and much more. The experience of getting to the stadium will be better too, including improved highway access, redesigned parking lots and new rail links from New York and New Jersey. These improved amenities, together with the new state-of-the-art playing and training facilities, will also position the Giants to continue to attract championship-caliber players for the foreseeable future.

It is true that the actual stadium and it’s amenities help draw fans and championship caliber players. An example of that is the Dallas Mavericks. They haven’t won a championship yet since Mark Cuban took over, but they make the Playoffs almost every year. They did make one NBA Finals appearance. They made basketball matter in Dallas where the Cowboys reign supreme. New York is a city where the marketability of the players is much larger than the rest of the county. The perks are an added bonus, but the Giants would be able to bring in the talent regardless. The Giants also have history in the NFL. Mara and Tisch also mentioned that, “The new stadium development is the largest 100 percent privately financed stadium project in the United States.” I’m uncertain as to why the Giants and the Jets were unable to get any money from New Jersey and/or New York. You would think that there would’ve been incentives for them to share a stadium and to build a new stadium. So both teams have to channel the debt for a $1.6 billion stadium to the fans. Who else is going to pay for it? What alternatives are there? The article also provided contact information: If you have questions, or wish to apply for your PSLs online, please visit us at www.NYG2010.com or call our hotline at 1-877-NYG-2010 (1-877-694-2010).

I’m not a season ticket holder so you guys may have a different perspective on this than I do. I’ve been on the waiting list for about 2-3 years. If the Giants called me tomorrow and asked if I would like to buy season tickets in the new stadium in 2010 then I’m not sure that I would be able to afford it. I do think that the Giants should have stayed in Giants stadium a little longer - maybe until it hit it’s 50th birthday.

The media has been saying that this isn’t fair the the Giants fans. In general, more than 80 percent of the New York Giants’ current season ticket holders will be charged between $1,000 and $7,500 for the right to buy tickets for the team’s new stadium under a personal seat license plan announced by the Giants on Thursday. Licenses for some of the best seats will cost as much as $20,000. This isn’t new news. Ralph Vacchiano over at The Blue Screen did a great job explaining the pricing structure. Clemente Lisi of the New York Post wrote, “Call it a Giant rip-off.” Steve Politi of The Star-Ledger wrote, “In an era when most pro sports franchises treated fans like human ATMs, available for cash withdrawal 24 hours a day, the Giants were different. They operated like an old-fashioned family business, one that valued their customers’ loyalty over the size of their bank accounts. That’s gone now.” Kyle Burks, whose SeasonTicketRights.com Web site manages PSL sales for four NFL teams puts more of a positive spin on it by saying that, “Teams just haven’t done a good job on educating fans what they’re selling” and “The bottom line is that almost all seat licenses will appreciate over time”

John Mara spoke to WFAN about the PSLs twice today. He first spoke to Craig Carton of the ‘Boomer and Carton’ program this morning, and you can listen to the interview by clicking here. In the afternoon, he spoke to Chris Carlin and Kim Jones who were hosting the ‘Mike and the Mad Dog’ program today. You can listen to the interview by clicking here. It would be safe to assume that John Mara is taking a lot of heat right now due to this since he is out there talking about it. At least he is out there talking about it. I could see the Wilpon’s who own the Mets hiding if they did something like this. Definitely let us know what you think about the PSLs.

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Below is a letter to Giants Season Ticket Holders that was written by John Mara and Steve Tisch which was released on Giants.com this morning:

Dear Giants Season Ticket Holder:

            As the Giants prepare to defend the Super Bowl championship, and with construction of a new state-of-the-art stadium and team practice facility well underway at the Meadowlands, these are exciting times for Giants fans.

            The new stadium and practice facility are scheduled to open for the 2010 season and will offer Giants players, coaches and, most importantly, Giants fans the first-class facilities, services and amenities they deserve. 

            The stadium has been designed to provide fans with an unparalleled experience on Giants game days including: modernized food service, concessions, and restaurants; expanded team stores; tailgate zones, with improved tailgating facilities; upgraded and additional restrooms; Club seats with outstanding amenities; wider concourses; cutting-edge scoreboards that have in-stadium technology; and much more.  The experience of getting to the stadium will be better too, with improved highway access, redesigned parking lots, and a new rail line serving New Jersey and New York.  These improved amenities, together with the new state-of-the-art playing and training facilities, will position the Giants to attract championship-caliber players year after year. 

            At a cost of over $1.6 billion, the new stadium development is the largest 100 percent privately-financed stadium project in the United States.  As with the other NFL cities that have recently opened new or significantly renovated stadiums, we cannot build these new facilities without the sale of “PSLs” (Personal Seat Licenses) to Giants season ticket holders.  The net proceeds from the sale of the PSLs will be used to pay for the construction of the new stadium.

            Once you purchase a PSL, you can control your seat for as long as the Giants continue to play in the new stadium.  This means that, in addition to having the right to purchase the same season seats every year, you will also have the ability to transfer your PSL to other Giants fans, including to unrelated third parties.

             We are working very hard to develop a program and process for the purchase of PSLs that will provide a broad range of choices to Giants season ticket holders.  Here are a few things we can tell you now.  Each seat in the new stadium will have a PSL.  Over 90 percent of the upper level seats will have a $1,000 PSL.  Less than 5,000 seats in the lower level will have a $20,000 PSL, which will be the most expensive PSL at the new stadium.  The pricing of the PSLs for the other seats in the new stadium has not been finalized, but we hope and believe that you will be pleased with the options when we send more detailed information on the stadium’s PSL programs.  You will begin receiving that information in a few weeks.  The information will be sent out in stages so that our sales team can focus attention on every seat holder.
  
            Thank you for your continued loyalty.  Your ongoing support is sincerely valued, and it is the primary reason this new stadium will become a reality in 2010.

[Signed by John Mara and Steve Tisch]

P.S. As the seat allocation process progresses, you can visit the new stadium’s website at www.NYG2010.com for updates.

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