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It’s the only thing harder to get rid of than Mark Sanchez — a Jets personal seat license.
Fed-up season-ticket holders are desperately trying to unload their PSLs, setting up a potential mass exodus of Jets fans that could become an even bigger challenge for the team than finding a new general manager.
The selling of PSLs — pricey licenses for the right to buy season tickets — were used by both the Jets and Giants to help fund construction of the $1.6 billion, 82,500-seat MetLife Stadium they share that opened in 2010.
But while Giants fans’ PSLs have gone up in value — their team did just win a Super Bowl last season — Jets fans have seen their investments fall shorter than a Sanchez pass.
In the days since Gang Green’s miserable season ended, secondary-market Web sites have been flooded with thousands of ads by Jets fans offering PSLs at bargain-basement prices. More than 1,100 Jets PSLs alone were listed for sale last week at seasonticketrights.com, the world’s largest PSL broker. Most were priced well below what fans originally paid.
An owner of four “Coaches Club” PSLs behind the Jets bench paid $30,000 for each seat but is now trying to unload them for $12,000 a pop.
Another holder of two nearby seats who paid $60,000 combined is offering his for a total of $20,000.
And two mid-level seats that originally carried PSL fees of $4,000 each were up for sale for a mere $500 combined.
“I’ve come to the conclusion it’s just cheaper to go to road games and buy home games through StubHub,” said Kenny Scarabaggio, a season-ticket holder since 1983. “This whole PSL process was a rip-off.”
For two months, Scarabaggio has been trying to peddle his two mid-level mezzanine PSLs for $5,500 — well below the roughly $9,000 he’s paying on a 15-year plan — but can’t find a buyer.
He says he’s now among a growing number of fans considering a flea-flicker of their own: defaulting on remaining PSL payments and gambling that the media-obsessed Jets won’t take their season-ticket holders to court.
Under the PSL agreements, the Jets are legally entitled to full payment.
The topic has even become a hot issue on fan forums usually reserved for bashing the team’s play.
“My feeling is there’s going to be a lot of PSL owners who default,” said Bill Koy Jr., 41, a Morristown, NJ, lawyer whose family has owned season tickets since 1965, when the Jets first drafted Joe Namath.
“As a lawyer, I’m really curious to see if the Jets would really take their fans to court because of the public-relations hit they’d receive and the costs of such litigation,” added Koy, who is not looking to default on his six mid-level PSLs.
A team spokesman said the club wants to “work with fans” through various PSL “payment options” but declined to say whether it would take delinquent fans to court.
“Coaches Club” tickets run $700 each, so someone with two seats must shell out $14,000 yearly for 10 games including preseason — on top of the $60,000 plus interest they’re spending for the PSLs. However, these same tickets went for roughly half-price on StubHub for most games this past season.
“I’d rather take a hit now on the PSLs than continue paying $14,000 year after year for tickets I can get much cheaper through scalpers,” said a Manhattan banker, who’s trying to dump two “Coaches Club” PSLs for half the price of the $50,000 he paid.
The Jets charge an average of $117.94 per ticket for non-premium seats, tops in the NFL, according to Team Marketing Report. For premium PSL seats in the lower bowl and mezzanine sections, tickets average $301.36, well above the league average of $243.70.
However, fans using StubHub and other secondary-market sites this season paid an average of just $85.32, according to TiqIQ, an aggregator of secondary-market ducats.