For years, new owners who bought NFL teams would marvel at the idea of a team’s huge waiting list.
After all, how many businesses sell out everything they have and have people waiting, for years, at the door for the right to buy when something becomes available?
Until now, that is.
The New York Jets used to charge people $50 a year to stay on the waiting list.
The average wait was a decade and that often wasn’t for the best seats in the house.
Today?
The Jets, one year away from moving into their new stadium, have extended season ticket offers to their entire list. And it matters not where you are on the list. If you have the cash, you can pretty much sit anywhere you want in the stadium.
“It’s good to see that the age of greed, while perhaps not coming to an end, is perhaps somewhat on hiatus,” wrote a reader of this blog, who is on the Jets list but turned down the opportunity for tickets, saying they were too expensive for his taste.
I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.
For me, it has nothing to do with greed. It simply has to do with market value. There’s more supply than ever before and there’s less demand than ever before.
That’s why the Jets had to do what many teams have to do – blast the opportunity of buying season tickets to the masses, because the hit rate percentage is a lot lower than it has been in a long time. I think they'll sell out the season, but if they don't we'll know, thanks to the NFL blackout rule.
The Giants typically have had 25-year waits for their waiting list to turn over, but there won’t be any problem getting seasons in 2010 – at least at the current prices and with personal seat licenses involved. Anyone who can come up with the PSL fee and wants to buy a season ticket to a Giants game should be able to get in.
There are a few lists that still mean something - the Packers, Steelers, Patriots, Eagles and Redskins, come to mind. Many fans on those lists are of course hoping that their name doesn’t get called now, in a time where tickets on StubHub can be found cheaper than the price they would have to pay for the tickets coming directly from the team.
Questions? Comments? SportsBiz@cnbc.com
