PSL, Part 4

Part 1 discussed the email from the NY Giants, where we pieced together the fact that the “club” seats + Field 3 were no gift to Giants fans.

Part 2 discussed the Pat Hanlon response and the predictable flush of this offering through the waitlist as fast as possible so that they can market the PSLs to the corporates (read: fools who will pay $700/ticket instead of $160/ticket).

Part 3 highlighted the $300M Lehman bond financing fiasco, and the possibility/likelihood of this burden being passed onto PSL owners through higher ticket prices.

Yesterday I spoke with someone who made a commitment to purchase PSLs last August. He was given a brochure which had the following information:

Question-
“What if I am not satisfied with the location I am assigned?”

Answer-
“If you are not satisfied with your assigned PSL zone and/or seat location, your PSL money will be refunded and your seats will be offered to another Giants fan.”

Given
(1) many seasons tickets holders like the person above made commitments before the economy started going into the tank
(2) ticket locations will not be disclosed to PSL buyers until ~Q1 2010

Conclusion
>>More than a few will use this opening to back out of their commitment.

Why so negative? Take a look at slide 64 and slide 65 of the linked presentation. This was done last September when the stock market (S&P 500 index) was ~1200. Today it is 765. If we go to 307, that is like Dow ~ 2920. Don’t you get it? The Empire State Building was finished in the GREAT DEPRESSION and it took until after WWII to fill it. The New Giants Stadium will be finished in a depression. They may fill the stadium, but at what price? Of course people attended baseball games during the Great Depression, but they were not buying seat licenses and making commitments to buying packages of seasons tickets. And they didn’t have television to bring in games for free. Connect the dots. This is a luxury item that will be cut out of people’s budgets. MANY people’s budgets. And many corporate budgets as well.