In an e-mail message sent Friday to the members of the team’s season-ticket waiting list (which will need to be given a different name if all of those waiting for season tickets have rejected the opportunity to, you know, actually buy them), the Giants claim that they are close to selling out the remaining Personal Seat Licenses that will apply in their new home.
The new Giants Stadium opens in 2010.
The e-mail message says that there are “only about 500 new accounts away from selling out.” But there’s a difference between “accounts” and “total number of these PSL things we still need to move.” Per the e-mail, all non-Club (i.e., “reasonably affordable”) tickets and PSLs have sold out, leaving roughly 2,600 of the most expensive seats in the house available for even more expensive PSLs.
The e-mail claims that the existing 20,800 accounts have purchased 75,000 PSLs.
Meanwhile, there’s a slim chance that all the PSL revenue might have to eventually be refunded. On Friday, news emerged that earlier this month a judge refused to fully dismiss a class-action lawsuit attacking the efforts of the Giants and Jets to sell Personal Seat Licenses. Though three of the legal claims -- antitrust, consumer fraud, and unjust enrichment -- were scuttled, a claim for breach of contract has been permitted to continue, for now, through the litigation process.
“We’re trying to prove that the season-ticket holders had a right to renew that was essentially taken away from them without any compensation,” said the lawyer for the man who brought the lawsuit. “They’ve stopped allowing you to renew unless you buy a Personal Seat License.”
As explained by Ken Belson of the New York Times (we recommend buying Saturday’s edition), the judge has decided to give the plaintiff an opportunity to obtain through the pre-trial discovery process information regarding the possible existence of renewal rights that might have been breached via imposition of a PSL. In the end, there might not be enough evidence to prove the existence of contractual rights. Until then, however, the Giants and Jets will be spending some of that money paying a team of lawyers to defend the program, likely at rates of $500 per hour and higher.
And it would be a real hoot if the law firms also require the teams to purchase on a lump-sum basis the privilege of hiring the lawyers in the first place. It could be called a Personal Shark License.
Thank you very much. I’m here all week. And the next week. And the next. And so on.
