Well said. Any danger of Browns games being blacked out this year?
NFL stadiums with seat licenses are normally funded by the licenses, not by the city. The Panthers stadium is an example of that - they got no tax money.
I think a few december games still have tickets available, but no, there’s no real chance of them not being sold I don’t think. Outside of Green Bay, there’s no similarly sized city that has less of a chance of being blacked out, IMO.
I’m reasonably sure that Cleveland Browns stadium received significant tax money contribution and also requires PSLs.
In the case of the Bengals/Denver game, I am reading estimates that there are as many as 4,000 tickets still available, down to as few as 500. I wish there was a way I could find out for sure.
I think our local CBS affiliate buys up remaining tickets in order to air the game if it’s 1,000 tickets or less.
Actually, I think if your game is blacked out, you get NOTHING. Been a while since I’ve dealt with a blackout, but the Cardinals used to be blacked out regularly.
I think part of the problem this year is that teams can’t depend on companies to swoop in and buy the remaining tickets and donate them to charity.
I guess many of the people in Cleveland are really dumb to agree to that. The Mistake on the Lake sounds like a good name.
Actually I think that may be more common than you think. I believe that Paul Brown stadium is set up the same way.
So the dumbness extends to southern Ohio too. And possibly beyond that.
The only way many people here agreed to pay for PSLs was they knew the Panthers got no tax money for their stadium. They weren’t thrilled with the idea of PSLs at all.
Of course Panthers PSLs are actually a bargain compared to what some boosters donate to UNC and NC State for season tickets in prime locations.
Probably depends on the area, and which game it is. If it’s a night game, it’s probably the only one in progress, so you’d get reruns of Bonanza or something.
Pfft. Taxpayers paid for 75% of the new Cowboys stadium and guess whether they have PSLs?
Sorry I was wrong about the PSL thing , I guess only NC residents are smart enough to not get suckered into paying for a stadium twice.
Raymond James Stadium is totally publicly funded, and shock, the Bucs have PSLs. Not only that, but Hillsborough County pays for the entire cost of upkeep and the team gets all proceeds from Buccaneers games.
The only upside is that the stadium only cost $170 million to build, and is still the nicest open-air facility in the league, for my money.
If the PSLs don’t go to fund the stadium , I assume they just line the owner’s pockets. And those guys are not hurting for cash. Owning an NFL team is a almost like owning a printing press for money. Each team gets almost $100 mil a year from TV alone and it doesn’t matter what your market size is.
See, here’s the rub that people seem to be overlooking. Blackouts exert pressure both on fans to buy tickets and on teams to ensure that they are offering a product people want and afford. Blackouts are bad for everyone and the NFL knows this.
If they were to lift the threat of blackout in these tough economic times then the owners are relieved of their pressure to reduce ticket prices, market their product and create sales initiatives. As a result those ticket price increases will never be rescinded since the NFL will have set a precedence that allows NFL owner to simply wait out tough times as opposed to responding to them.
If smaller market teams are threatened with blackouts then it puts the onus on the owners to give fans reason to come. Greedy irresponsible owners may ignore this to their own peril, see Bill Wirtz, but savvy owners will slash ticket prices and run incentives like MLB teams occasionally do to fill those stadiums and recover some revenue at the concession stands.
Removing the blackout policy, while a easy and shortsighted political fix, is a much worse long term solution. Removing the one pressure that owners have to lower ticket prices and peripheral costs is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
That’s a neat trick, apologizing for a mistake and bragging all in the same breath. :rolleyes:
Back on the blackout topic, the trouble is that the NFL’s position that local broadcasts cut revenue is wrong. Bad teams and high prices cut revenue. Sports team owners used to think that blackouts cut ticket sales, but now all but the NFL know that they are actually a useful advertising mechanism. TV sports broadcasts amount to a 2.5 hour infomercial for their product, with another half hour for revenue producing commercials. MLB, NBA, NHL, NASCAR and the NCAA all get along quite nicely without a blackout rule, don’t they?
:rolleyes:
Calm down. PSL have been around a long time and I don’t think you actually understand how they work. The only fans who incur this cost are the season ticket holders, not the average fans, and the PSL is essentially a private bond. The team builds a new stadium and incurs a lot of debt to do so. Teams issuing PSLs aren’t doubling their income they are simply splitting the costs. Teams that get tax money to build a stadium don’t all get the same amount. Some teams get big chunks and some get small chunks, teams that got smaller chunks are more likely to use PSLs to recover a portion of their own money they had to contribute.
For the record Ericsson Stadium (now BOA Stadium) took $50M in public funds to build the stadium which the team owns in it’s entirety, 20% of the total cost. In comparison the Bears took $387M in public funds, about 66% of the total cost but the land and venue are owned by the Park District and it’s part of a shared facility that houses the Museum campus. In both cases about $200M in costs were shouldered by the teams and partially recovered by PSLs. They are really identical situations but the circumstances dictated that the Chicago project, located on public land in the heart of the city, cost much more and considering the benefits to the city it’s justified the public funds.
It’s also crucial to ask who owns the stadium. In the case of the Bears and the Cowboys the team leases the stadium from the city and shares revenues. The stadium is not a gift, it’s a profit generating facility much like a toll road or a municipal tourist attraction. In cases like the Panthers and Patriots they are owned by the team outright. The owners pay no rent or share no revenues with the city. One could argue that the Panthers are the scummiest of the examples since they took $50M from the city and county and are giving nothing directly back while the stadiums built with public funds are a city investing in itself. Without knowing the terms of these leases you can’t really draw any conclusions but the sweeping generalizations about who’s an idiot only confirm one idiot in the thread.
PSLs it must be noted are durable goods. They are resellable and essentially are a zero cost item for the season ticket holder. They are purchased once in order to fund the team portion of the stadium and from that point on the PSL is fully transferable and the season ticketholder can sell and recover that money at any point.
Wow, you mean a fan without a season ticket doesn’t have to buy a PSL?? Gee, I never knew that!! Guess I’ve been wasting money on my PSL and I never got a ticket!!
Omniscient, you seem to come from the point of view that whatever is good for owners is good for fans. Keeping blackouts might be best for the league’s bottom line, but its unfairly tough on supporters unable to purchase ridiculously expensive tickets in a ridiculously bad economy.
The question of whether publicly funded stadiums are actually “profit generating facilities,” as you claim, is one hotly contested in urban planning circles. Not saying you’re wrong, but I wouldn’t just drop that in as if it were accepted fact, especially considering football-specific facilities see at most 9-10 full capacity sporting events a year.
Also, if PSLs were “essentially bonds”, then the teams that employ that strategy could just offer, well, bonds to their fanbase. IMO, licenses are an awfully cynical way to treat season ticket holders, the most dedicated of supporters.
-Piker
Wow, you really need to reread what I wrote.
No, they are by definition revenue generating. The collect money from the lessee and take a portion of concession and parking sales. They have real income. Now, perhaps I shouldn’t have used the term profit since that depends greatly on the terms of the lease, the amount of money invested and the operating expenses and in the case of the Chicago Park District it’s a not for profit venture.
What is debated is the ancillary benefit to the city in terms of tourism, increased business and tax revenues and various undefined cultural assets. I have no opinion on this here, but the point of my comments are that comparing the stadium finances of a team that owns it’s building outright versus teams that rent buildings that are publicly owned is not an apples to apples comparison.
It would be better for fans for the team to issue “bonds” on the open market? For speculators and corporations to bid up? By issuing PSLs they are essentially creating bonds which are only available to the people who care most about the team and benefit most from it. And for the record publicly funded stadiums DO issue bonds, that’s where that public money comes from. By offering PSLs they are asking the average taxpayer who may or may not care about the team or even be a resident of the city to pay one portion and the season ticket holders, the fans and beneficiaries of a new venue, to ante up their portion. PSLs are better than having spreading the cost evenly amongst all taxpayers and more fair.