March 18, 2010

Jets and Giants race clock to sell out PSLs

Another day, another New York Times story on the state of the sports industry, this one on whether the New York Giants and Jets will be able to sell out their personal seat licenses in time for their new stadium's opening this fall.

Times writer Richard Sandomir reports that the Giants "are about 1,500 licenses short of selling out but have been at that level for at least two months," but that a team spokesman says "sales had not hit a wall and were expected to pick up soon." The Jets, meanwhile, won't say how many licenses remain, but that sales are "going well."

Whistling through the graveyard aside, you wouldn't think that falling a few thousand seats short in an 82,500-seat stadium would make that much difference — that's what game-day sales are for, right? Except that PSLs add a new wrinkle: Since fans have been told that buying PSLs is the only way to get tickets (or the only way to get good tickets, in the Jets' case, since they're offering some PSL-free seats), they're likely to be awful steamed if they find themselves sitting next to fans who bought seats with no extra fees. That's what happened in Oakland when the Raiders couldn't sell out their PSLs and resorted to selling them as regular seats, and that's a debacle that nobody wants to risk repeating.

If I had to put my money on something, it'd be some quiet discounting of specific PSLs to try to get them to move. (The Jets already cut some prices last month, after earlier price cuts in October.) New York football fans, watch your emails for discount coupon codes...