There's an editorial written by a Giants fan on the Opinions page of the Star-Ledger today, but I can't find it to post it. Anyway, the guy basically has a good point. He's claiming Mara and Tisch "care" about Giants fans but are doing what every other NFL mogul is currently doing... nailing their most loyal fans to the cross. He makes a good point, which is, if they really cared about their ticketholders, they could have come closer to covering the cost by expanding the number of seats, not by charging outrageous PSLs. I hope the newspaper is loaded with objections to the PSLs, not that it'll probably do any good. But it's interesting that the Giants' PSL proposal has been out in the open for weeks now, yet we still hear nothing from the Jets. Kinda weird, given they both supposedly share identical costs. What should be mandatory for the Giants (to cover costs) ought to be the same for the Jets, unless there's an element of greed in there... (God Forbid)... At any rate, it's good to see public objections to the PSLs. It probably won't do any good, but what the hell...
I saw the same letter. I copied it by hand from the newspaper. Enjoy. Giants' greed leaves fans blue The Giants' owners profess how much they care for fans, yet follow the example of other "new breed" NFL owners in gouging loyal supporters. They claim that personal seat license fees give the 130,000 fans on the waiting list a better opportunity to get season tickets, yet they easily could have accomplished that by adding 10,000 to 15,000 seats to the new stadium. When we buy a personal seat license, we own it and its value will rise or fall according to market conditions. The licenses are commodities that can be sold to the highest bidder, no longer restricted to immediate family members, for an undisclosed "transfer fee." How will this benefit those on the waiting list? Wouldn't the ideal licence purchaser be a ticket broker with an established demand for ticket resales who can out-bid individuals? As much as licenses stick it to ticket holders, they're worse for all those patiently waiting in line for tickets. Whoever pays the most for resale gets to jump to the front of the line. John Mara and Steve Tisch are laughing their way to the bank. Wellington Mara cries alongside ticket-buying fans. Ray Harold - Freehold
If I recall, the PSLs the Giants announced are much less than the ones the Jets polled us about recently. Something like 95% of the upper deck seats would be $1000. Not that this is great, but at least that may be possible for normal folks to pay. If the Jets exceed this - or blatantly exceed it with ones like the ones they polled us on - mutiny would be justified. The Jets sucked last year and the Giants won the freaking Superbowl!
The trend in professional sports is to push the middle-class fans out of the stadium in favor of the wealthy and corporate boxholders. That doesn't mean all that much in baseball because most middle-class families that are hardcore fans can still manage a half dozen trips to the park each season even at inflated prices. That's because the economy of scale of an 81 game home schedule is so much more forgiving than the 8 games that an NFL team has to make it's nut. I expect Jet's ticket prices to go out of sight for season ticket holders sooner rather than later. I also expect that hardcore fans will still be able to make a game or even maybe two at the stadium each season.
I have been a season ticket holder for 4 years. I will not pay PSL's. Jet tickets (except for 1 or 2 games a year) are always avaiable at face value. AND -- what i save in 2 pre season games -- and eating one or two games at the end (if they are terrible) will more than make up the savings. The down side is playoff tickets.
When a business has more demand for its product than product the price goes up. This isn't about being nice to the fans, loyalty or any other such nonesense. It's just business. Hopefully enough people won't demand season tickets at an outragous price and the regular fan won't need season tickets. They will be able to walk up to the ticket both and buy seats at a reasonable price the day of a game. As crazy as that seems when people have to heat their homes this winter, NFL, NBA and Hockey games may not seem so important. Maybe your local bank will be in such bad straits that they offer tickets instead of a toaster for opening an FDIC insured account. If things get bad enough Jets and Giants fans may go for the toaster, at least it can be pawned.
The Jets will most likely do the same thing but it's a little trickier for them. The Giants have at least won 3 SBs in most of their fans lifetimes. The Jets haven't won squat. The Giants know that even though their fans will scream they will pay it anyway. The Jets aren't so sure. Besides, if they don't do it this year they will do it next year or the year after anyway. There is no chance it won't happen at some point.
as long as people keep buying DirecTV's NFL ticket, and advertisers keep buying air time, I don't think they'll be too worried....... for now
I rue the day I ever heard of a "new stadium," be it in the Meadowlands, Manhatten, Queens or otherwise. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the current stadium, other than the name on the building, which could have easily been changed. The stadium as it stands today is completely functional, has great sight lines, the restrooms are clean and I don't frequent the concessions enough to care about the quality of the food. Honesty, all this talk of "upscale, state-of-the art" bullshit is nonsensical. Who cares? It's a freakin' football stadium! I don't go there "for the experience" or to admire the architecture or to wallow in the ambiance of an "upscale environment." I go there to watch a f@cking football game. As long as the beer is cold, the toilets flush, I can watch my Jets from a good seat and get in and out quickly, I could give two Shiites less how upscale the place is. This whole thing is a freakin' disaster and I hope it comes back to bite both franchises on the ass.
The food sucks & the stadium is ugly. When you go around the country and see how the other fans live, the Meadowlands is an embarrassment. In Pittsburgh they have 4 different flavors of wings, Roethlis-burgers, etc etc. New England has Legal clam chowda. Why shouldn't we have amazing food and a beautiful stadium? We deserve it. You just gotta pony up, 227, or someone else will. That's the way the world is going. I read a story about this Mets season ticket holder. In 93 his four seats were 5g's. By 07 they were up to 30g's. In the new stadium they want 65g's for those seats, and that's the cost of the tickets. Add a PSL of god knows what and this guy is O-U-T. Going to games in a good seat is now a privilige, and you can't sit there because you got there first and 'always sat there'. You wanna sit there, you gotta pay through the nose. It's not just the Jets and Giants.
I don't go there for the food or to admire the stadium. What we really "deserve" is a winning season. All the rest is immaterial to me.
Yup when we stop paying the game will be priviledged to have fans again instead of the other way around. Somewhere from back there to up ahead we made a wrong turn.
Sorry 227 just a winning season does not do iit for me. The only thing that is acceptable is a SB championship or 2 or 3 or..............
In what war torn 3rd world country are these restrooms considered "clean"? The Meadowlands is a dump, through and through. There is no reason why the two teams that represent the biggest city in the world (even though they play right across the river in a different state) should have a stadium that is by far one of the 5 worst in the league. Granted, i dont need fancy ammenities either and actually only buy beer and water when im in there since i tailgate pretty hard, but that doesnt mean that we should be watching games in the NFL equivalent of Attica. For christ's sake, the animals that are Eagles fans even have a nice new stadium. I will agree with you on the sight lines though. there really isnt a bad seat in the house as far as seeing the action goes.
The whole concept of the shared stadium was a good one. It was initially sold to the public primarily as cost-saving measure to both teams. Shared expenses would keep the costs down... brilliant! Then, somewhere along the way, both teams have all but ignored this to the point of not even mentioning it anymore. The Giants come out with their statement to their ticketholders, basically whining about building costs and what other teams are doing in the way of PSLs to cover this (never once acknowledging that their costs are HALF of what these other teams' costs are), and the Jets come out with this equally outrageous "poll" which implies prices that are even greater than what the Giants came out with... again, never once acknowledging the Shared Costs platform upon which the whole concept of building a new stadium was founded. I guess this is the thing that urks me the most. I feel we've all been shafted royally. And lied to, to boot. What ever became of the massive benefit of the shared stadium? Which leads us to an even better question. If the Giants (as they had threatened to do) knocked down the old stadium, kciked the Jets out as tenants, and built themselves their own stadium, and if the Jets had gotten the approvals from NY for their proposed WSS, what the hell would the building costs have been then? And what would the PSLs be then? They would have had to charge $100,000 per seat! The whole thing smacks of a huge ripoff. The public, the fans and the ticketholders were sold a bill of goods with this "shared cost" bullShiite and now that it's all approved they go for the juglar. It's a major disgrace and both teams are shafting not only the ticketholders, but indirectly the entire Giants-Jets communities in NY-NJ-CT who pay for an occasional ticket to go to a game.
