I previously discussed the unbelievable rise of the athletes’ salaries. I’ve received some feedback intimating that I am unfairly attacking athletes for their financial windfall. This is not my point at all. My problem is with the system within which athletes have to operate. Everyone has a right to go for all they can get in this wonderful country, I just feel that we have to control the demand and let the market work it out. Today, the topic shifts to the other more subtle ways we pay out to the sports gods. The pro sports system gouges us for massive ticket prices, the infamous PSL’s, parking fees, souvenirs, and those wonderful concessions.
First, I must share my thoughts on PSL’s. For those of you who are not familiar a PSL or, Personal Seat License, gives the person ownership of the rights to their seat in the stadium. I remember back in the day when you were a season ticket holder it meant that you received the tickets for your seat or seats for every game of that season. The owners, God bless their money hungry little hearts, came up with a new plan. Let’s tell the season ticket holders that if they don’t buy this new license for their seats, we will force them to forfeit those seats back to us. The best part is that the better the seats are, the more we can charge for them! It’s sheer brilliance, the better seats are held by the fans that have had them in their families for generations.
These tickets are a part of their family history. They will pay almost ANYTHING to keep them. If not, we’ll find some other idiot (sorry, devout fan) with deep pockets to buy the seats and we’ll offer the original owner some upper tier nosebleed seats to make it seem as if we care that they come back. We will tell these deep pocketed idiots(sorry, devout fans) that they own this license, and if they ever want to sell their season tickets they can also sell this license as an asset. They actually completely fabricated a “middle step” in season ticket ownership and passed it off as an asset! Did the people stand up and say NO? Well, not very loudly. Here in Chicago, they whined for a few months, but in the end they ponied up the cash. Those that couldn’t afford it were forced to give up their seats and took lesser seats with no PSL attached to them, or just lost their seats entirely. This was the reward for having been a fan for your whole life. This was the reward for your grandparents and parents having been fans for their entire lives.
Sorry Mr. and Mrs. Fan, times are tough for us owners and we NEED this additional revenue to keep up or the quality of our team may suffer. Really, do we think that the majority of this money went to the players? I can tell you that I don’t. I believe that it is just more profit being made by the machine at our expense. If it did, then perhaps we need to reel in the spending and make the sports what they originally were, entertainment for the family. How did we let this happen? What are we going to do about it?
Next blog, I complete this topic by digging into the other revenue streams of the sports machine and share my personal solution as well as what I have done to back up what I say.
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