Is a Blackout Coming for NY Jets and Giants Fans?
Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets has now proclaimed that he will not be blacking out his team’s home games, from TV, because the Jets can’t sell its remaining overpriced personal seat licenses (“PSL”). What a guy.
The Jets “stadium mates”, the New York Football Giants have sold more PSL’s than the Jets but are yet to sell out.
Let’s keep in mind that there is no way a New York media market team is going to rock the foundations of the NFL TV contract because they can’t sell a few seats. A blackout would be a financial disaster for the NFL as precious advertising money would be lost.
For those of you are not from the NY area, you need to know the following truths. Truth #1: there was nothing wrong with the now torn down Giants Stadium (where the Giants and Jets played). A simple facelift and some improvements with the concourses and the concessions stands would have made the fans happy. But no, the owners of the Giants and Jets had to build a $1.6 billion “white elephant” stadium instead to charge their fans for these PSL’s. Truth #2, the Giants and Jets badly mistimed the market. The teams hoped to squeeze out their loyal fans from their good seats (held by fans for generations) and replace them with well groomed stock brokers and hedge fund managers from Wall Street (oops). Truth #3: so now a family of 4 can sit on the 50 yard line, in the new stadium, for the “reasonable” price of $2,800 per game (I don’t know if that includes tax). That’s right; the best seats are now $700 a ticket. Did I mention those seats have PSLs of $20,000 per seat? Truth #4, once you pay for the PSL, there is no college fund for the kids.
So now that you know the ugly truths. What will the Jets and Giants do? They will screw their fans, of course. If they can’t sell their oppressive PSL’s with their outrageous ticket prices, the Jets and Giants will have to find a way out to save the NFL TV contract. They will give the seats to advertisers or maybe host those stock brokers to a free game in hopes of making a sale.
I wonder if they can use that TARP bailout money on a PSL?
My name is Christopher Fusco. I am the managing partner of Callahan & Fusco, LLC with offices in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.