Local TV blackouts of regular-season NFL games — something not seen in these parts in more than 30 years — are looming ominously for the Jets.
In an exclusive interview with The Post yesterday, Jets owner Woody Johnson acknowledged his team has more than 10,000 personal seat licenses still unsold just three months before its first game at 82,500-seat New Meadowlands Stadium.
A league source with knowledge of the situation told The Post the Jets’ unsold PSLs numbered a whopping 17,000. Johnson disputed that figure yesterday but did not deny the number was still north of 10,000.
Johnson also told The Post that he will refuse to lift the hugely unpopular PSLs for the unsold lower-bowl sea s on a game-by-game basis just to avoid blackouts this fall.
“No, we’re not going to do that,” Johnson said of selling the lower-bowl seats without PSLs for individual games, shaking his head for emphasis.
Additionally, Johnson said the team has ruled out cutting the price of the unsold PSLs, which range from $5,000 each to as high as $30,000 each for club seats and from $4,000 each up to $20,000 each for lower-bowl seats not in club sections or suites.
“[They are] fairly priced right now,” Johnson told The Post when asked about dropping the PSL cost. “[They’re] selling, and [they’re] selling right along our trendlines, so we’re good to go.”
Described by some as extortionate money grabs, PSLs are controversial “licenses” giving the buyer the right to buy season tickets for a particular seat within a stadium. The licenses are forfeited if the PSL owner does not purchase the 10-game season ticket for that seat every year.
The Jets did not require fans to buy PSLs for the roughly 28,000 seats in the upper bowl of the new stadium, and virtually all of those tickets have been sold.
Prompting serious concerns within the Jets of the $1.6 billion stadium’s debut being marred by Gang Green’s first regular-season TV blackout since 1977 is the location of many of the unsold PSLs.
A source said at least 8,000 of the available PSLs are for seats in the lower bowl but not in club sections or suites.
That’s an important distinction because, according to the NFL’s blackout policy, all “non-premium” seats — seats not in suites or club sections — must be sold for the game to be shown on local TV.
Conversely, the Giants are in much better shape and seemingly in no danger of what would be their first regular-season blackout since 1974, the year after pressure from Congress prompted the creation of the league’s blackout policy.
The Giants have fewer than 1,500 unsold PSLs (ranging in price from $7,500 to $20,000 each), all in club sections that don’t count toward the blackout. The Giants charged as little as $1,000 each for their PSLs, and the team said yesterday that all of its non-premium PSLs have been sold.
Speaking at the stadium ceremony yesterday to unveil New York’s 2014 Super Bowl bid, Johnson expressed confidence that his team’s marketing efforts ultimately will pay off.
The Jets have been almost
manic in their sales pitches
recently, according to numerous people who have received cold calls,
unwanted, in many cases, from
team reps hawking the PSLs.
“We’ll eventually sell [the remaining PSLs],” Johnson told The Post. “I’m 100-percent
confident that we’ll sell them. Whether it’s exactly in the timeline that we predict now, we’re going to sell them. I think our product is too good. And when people see the stadium and come see [non-football] events here, they will sell.”
The pricey PSLs — put in place so the Jets and Giants could offset the cost of building the new stadium — are so unpopular that both teams long ago blew through decades-long ticket waiting lists.
An even more telling sign of the discontent: There already is a burgeoning market of Jets and Giants fans with a strong case of PSL
buyer’s remorse.
A survey yesterday of three major PSL resale sites (stadiumpsl.com, craigslist and eBay) showed individuals offering 26 Jets PSLs and an eye-popping 134 Giants PSLs for cost or far below cost — and that’s months before either team has played a game.
Even at a profit, any PSL resales this year would nullify the contract the buyer signed with the teams. Neither the Giants nor the Jets are allowing resale of PSLs before March 1, 2011, unless it is to an immediate family member.
It’s all adding up to a potentially embarrassing black eye for the Jets — thousands of empty seats and local TV blackouts for a team coming off a trip to the AFC Championship Game. To that, Johnson would only say: “I can’t envision it.”