Vikings may impose new fan fees

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Originally Posted by i_bleed_purple

Depends. Comparatively, Minneapolis doesn't have as many high roller season ticket fans. A LOT of blue collar working citizens go to these games. They don't just have a few thousand dollars to throw away on tickets. Yeah, there are those who won't have a problem affording it, but others can't. They need to structure it in a way where only the prime seats have PSLs. College kids who buy a single season ticket won't be buying that ticket anymore, they'll be on the resale market. Low income families who like to go to games every sunday in the cheap seats won't be doing that anymore. If you're fine with spending $170+ for a great ticket, then I suspect a PSL won't be as big an issue for you.

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Just picking a part of your post out to make response easier to read. :)

First, one of the options was only having PSLs for the lower bowl and upper deck sidelines. The upper deck endzone and corners were free of PSLs.

Second, even if every seat is subject to a PSL doesn't mean that every seat will be sold as a season ticket. Hell, we can't do that now without PSLs. Adding an additional charge will trim down the season ticket numbers pretty significantly at first, although it will work its way back up over the years. But I highly doubt we ever get to the point in Minnesota where every seat is sold as a season ticket. That means that the same number or more single game tickets will be on the resale market.

The idea that PSLs are somehow going to screw or take advantage of the fans is misguided. The biggest impact will be on the people who can afford $170+ for a great ticket, and like you said, PSLs won't be as big of an issue.

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Originally Posted by jmcdon00

I'm pretty sure the team will offer to finance the PSL. So rather than pay the full $1,000 per seat up front you can pay an extra $100 for 10 years, or something like that.
Ultimately they can only charge what the market will bear, if the cost is too high people won't go. The last thing they want is to have empty seats.

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I missed this, but you are correct. In the survey, financing options were available. The two I saw were for 3 and 5 years though.

And you nailed it when you said that the market will dictate what the PSLs cost. That was the point of the survey. This isn't New York, and the Vikings aren't going to try to charge New York prices.

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Originally Posted by NodakPaul

Just picking a part of your post out to make response easier to read. :)

First, one of the options was only having PSLs for the lower bowl and upper deck sidelines. The upper deck endzone and corners were free of PSLs.

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I'd be fine with that. Ideally I'd rather it be limited to Lower bowl the prime seats, so lower sidelines/ endzones within first 15 rows, Upper deck Sidelines up to row 20 (or whatever they deem the cutoff point for prices. Beyond that they're generally sold as cheap seats. Endzone seats can go very inexpensively, Sideline nosebleeds are other good cheap options. I"m not looking this year, but probably in the next couple years I'll be picking up season tickets. Not if I've gotta pay an extra large fee on top of it.

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Second, even if every seat is subject to a PSL doesn't mean that every seat will be sold as a season ticket. Hell, we can't do that now without PSLs.

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True, but I believe we have something like 50K season tickets holders. in a 63K seat stadium that's the vast majority of seats.

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Adding an additional charge will trim down the season ticket numbers pretty significantly at first, although it will work its way back up over the years. But I highly doubt we ever get to the point in Minnesota where every seat is sold as a season ticket. That means that the same number or more single game tickets will be on the resale market.

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I've accepted the resale market won't be like it is now. One of the good things I like (now for my own selfish reasons) is that you can get any number of tickets generally at decent prices up to the game. With what you're proposing, fewer people will have season tickets solely to resell, so you won't see the groups of 1-14 on sale like you do now. If you want to go to a Packers game or something from out of town, you will pay more, or you have to plan really early.

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The idea that PSLs are somehow going to screw or take advantage of the fans is misguided. The biggest impact will be on the people who can afford $170+ for a great ticket, and like you said, PSLs won't be as big of an issue.

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I get the idea. I'm feeling that Dayton is mis-guiding people as well, by claiming he dosn't want the stadium to be for the super rich only. As long as it's structured in a way that doesn't affect the lower-income buyers, that's fine with me. If you've got great seats, you're paying a couple thousand a year anyway. PSL for the cheap seats will have a much bigger effect.

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Originally Posted by singersp

And if season tickets are averaging $50/seat, the average person who was paying $1,000 for two season seats, will now have to fork out $5,000 for those same equivalent seats.

If he keeps the season tickets for 10 years, it still ends up costing him $14,000 or $70 each for a $50 seat, $280 of which is for preseason games. If he keeps them for 20 years, $60 a seat for a $50 seat, $240 of which is for preseason games.

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The math is a little off because the average price is $75. And the price of tickets tends to go up with inflation and cost of living. But you are generally correct - the longer you keep your season tickets, the lower the cost of the initial investment. This is one of the good things with PSLs - they encourage long ownership.

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Originally Posted by singersp

Yes, I get it that the PSL's can be re-sold, but c'mon, how easy is that going to be? If there was a waiting line for people to buy season tickets like there is in Green Bay, then yes maybe they can sell them. Truth is, I can't name a time in Vikings history that there was ever a waiting line for season tickets. Only the primo seats stand a chance of being re-sold. Getting the full PSL price back out of them is a different story.

The more likely scenario is going to be that the season ticket PSL's will end up being vacated. Given the economy the way it is, fans may not be able to renew their season tickets due to the economy, financial problems, divorce or whatever. With season tickets not being high in demand, the stadium not selling out & single game tickets easy to get, owners will probably not be able to sell them & may either have to take a huge loss on them or vacate them all together. Their window of time to sell them, could be very short. If they are vacated, the Vikings will get to sell them again for full PSL price & eventual sell those same two PSL's again for another $2,000.

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PSL seats are very, very rarely vacated. Jacksonville is the only city I know of where this has happened on a significant basis, and that is because the value of PSLs has plummeted.

In every other area, PSLs are very active on the reseller market. This becomes the preferred method of upgrading or changing seats. In fact, most teams have sites set up for the sole purpose of reselling PSLs, after all, it is in the team's best interest to keep the PSLs sold as well. Now as with any reseller market, whether or not you get face value for the PSLs has a lot to do with the location of the seats. Just like with regular tickets on the market. Truthfully, you probably won't get face value back for the PSL unless you are on an aisle or have prime seats. But you will always get SOMETHING. Vacating the seats just doesn't happen.

Check out https://rams.seasonticketrights.com/...rketplace.aspx to get a good idea of how the reseller market works.

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Originally Posted by singersp

I know I along with several other fans who used to be able to afford season tickets, will not be able to afford the PSL's & therefore not be buying them.

I'll have to resort to buying tickets on eBay again & with the stadium not selling out, should have no problem buying them below face value without having to pay PSL fees or paying full price for preseason tickets.

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This is a fact, and is a side effect of PSLs. The number of season tickets WILL go down initially. And it will take several years to build back up. But as it does, the season ticket market will actually become more stable than it is now. And there will always be tickets available for people who would rather buy from resellers or single game tickets. That is part of the game...

Tom Powers: Governor's Vikings rant about 6 months too late - TwinCities.com

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Gov. Mark Dayton's populist rant against personal seat licenses is about six months too late. That Vikings ship has sailed. We can barely hear the Gjallarhorn off in the distance.

I could make some sort of smart remark about his failure to read the fine print in the stadium deal, but that wouldn't be right because the Vikings were up front about what they were going to do.

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Wow. A Tom Powers article that isn't complete shit. Who knew this day would ever come?

As Tom Powers says in the PP today, didn't Gov Loony Tunes read what he signed?

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Originally Posted by NodakPaul

In the case of the stadium, PSLs ARE implemented to pay for the stadium itself. It was written directly into the legislation. This is one of the reasons I think Dayton is off base, because the wording of the bill itself specifically lists PSLs as a way the Vikings can generate revenue for the private contribution.

Even if that wasn't the case, that is like saying that I don't have a job to necessarily pay for my house, I have a job to increase my wealth. Technically this is true - my job/business is not tied to my house in any binding way, but the fact is I still have to pay for my house. The Wilfs still have to put in half a billion dollars of private money - unless the revenue generated by PSLs exceeds this contribution, they aren't building any wealth.

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However you slice it, the revenue isn't shared by the NFL so it has been primarily used as a source of profit for the teams. How you want to account for it on the ledger is semantics.

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This is blatantly wrong, and making blanketing statements about ticket prices like this just serves to induce panic among fans. Not you specifically, as I know you are generally informed, but there is a lot of speculation out there about things like ticket prices, and it took me almost 2 seconds to find a list of the average ticket prices for all teams.
http://media.star-telegram.com/smedi...HczB.So.58.pdf
Right now the Jets and Patriots top the list at $117. Expensive, but a far cry from $160. Even the Cowboys with their billion dollar stadium and $100k PSLs only have an average ticket price of $110. And the average ticket price for the Cowboys, Jets, and Giants, didn't go up significantly with the opening of their stadiums. In fact the Giants average price went DOWN.

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But your 2 seconds didn't really tell us squat about what a ticket will be and the reason for us not having hard numbers is because none have been provided and my guess is until it is built they don't want the public to know. they certainly didn't want that info out before the vote was taken.

I have put it out to you and so far you have never given a good answer as to how the prices aren't going to go up considering all of the added expenses to the stadium The money doesn't just flow out of ziggy's butt.

Take the Cowboys as an example. So the ticket price averages 110.00. There is at least an 85,000 seat capacity ( expandable to 100,000)

So you take 110x85,000 and you get a number of 9,350,000 dollars of revenue a game from just seating.

Now, our stadium will hold about 65,000. To get to the same revenue number you would need to charge 143.84 per ticket to equal the same revenue. the stadiums as far as we know right now will have a similar cost so they would need to have similar revenue to hit break even.

At 65,000 seats, if we only charge say 90 dollars a ticket it only generates 5,850,000 per game in ticket revenue which is a significant reduction from the revenue generated to make the cowboys facility solvent.

Additionally the team charges 78 per ticket average on 65,000 seats right now in a stadium that is paid for and isn't 1 billion in the hole on day 1 and the resulting 5,070,000 in revenue results in a yearly operating loss on the current facility.


So with that said, how much do you figure the team needs to generate the revenue needed to sustain a new billion dollar stadium and still make a profit for the owner? how does that translate to per ticket prices?

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The Vikings average ticket price is $75.69, below the NFL average of $78.38.

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yeah, and they are running an operating loss on the facility at that price and the building is paid for.

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The average price in Indy, with a brand new stadium and PSLs, is $85.34. I think this is much closer to what we can expect to see from the Vikings. Teams that charge more than that are all in large markets or high demand areas that can support higher average ticket prices. It has little or nothing to do with the price of the stadium because of the NFL revenue sharing plan. it has everything to do with the market, and the Minnesota market simply won't support average ticket prices higher than that.

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The indy stadium was about 300 million less expensive than what the Vikings are proposing which will change the ticket price.I am not sure about all of the cost structures but my guess is that will make a pretty decent bump in ticket prices to make up for just as going from a 700,000 house to a 1,000,000 house adds 2300 to the monthly mortgage. The city of indy also had to impose additional sales taxes to make the stadium solvent within the first 2 years of operation so basically they transferred the cost to the general public and away from the fan base.

Anyway I hope you are right and they find some magic fairy dust that makes the costs of the stadium shrink.

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Originally Posted by NodakPaul

The math is a little off because the average price is $75. And the price of tickets tends to go up with inflation and cost of living. But you are generally correct - the longer you keep your season tickets, the lower the cost of the initial investment. This is one of the good things with PSLs - they encourage long ownership.



PSL seats are very, very rarely vacated. Jacksonville is the only city I know of where this has happened on a significant basis, and that is because the value of PSLs has plummeted.

In every other area, PSLs are very active on the reseller market. This becomes the preferred method of upgrading or changing seats. In fact, most teams have sites set up for the sole purpose of reselling PSLs, after all, it is in the team's best interest to keep the PSLs sold as well. Now as with any reseller market, whether or not you get face value for the PSLs has a lot to do with the location of the seats. Just like with regular tickets on the market. Truthfully, you probably won't get face value back for the PSL unless you are on an aisle or have prime seats. But you will always get SOMETHING. Vacating the seats just doesn't happen.

Check out https://rams.seasonticketrights.com/...rketplace.aspx to get a good idea of how the reseller market works.



This is a fact, and is a side effect of PSLs. The number of season tickets WILL go down initially. And it will take several years to build back up. But as it does, the season ticket market will actually become more stable than it is now. And there will always be tickets available for people who would rather buy from resellers or single game tickets. That is part of the game...

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With that said, it seems to me it could be very costly & difficult to upgrade your seats, which many season ticket holders try to do.

If after a couple of years you want to upgrade your 2 seats that you paid a $4,000 PSL fee for, you're not only going to take a huge loss on that fee when you try to resell it, but you now have to buy yet another higher price PSL seating to make that upgrade.

So if you had purchased two $75 seats with a PSL of $4,000 ($2,000 ea) & you sold the PSL's 2 years later for half price to make an upgrade, those $75 seats just cost you $125 ea for every game you had over that 2 year period.

Again, in our market area IMO our supply & demand on season tickets & game day tickets is similar to that in Jacksonville. There's currently & always has been plenty of season tickets to be had w/o paying PSL's & lately we can't even sell out games.

On a side note, do ticket brokers have to purchase PSL's for all the seats they are buying to resell?

At the end of the day, I see the number of season ticket holders declining, even with the addition of the new stadium due to the PSL fees. In our market area, in our economy, I believe it's difficult for many of the typical season ticket holders to commit to buying season tickets over the course of several decades to justify paying the PSL fees.

If they want to see a game, they'll walk up to the ticket counter & pay face value for a $75 ticket instead of paying $100+ for a $75 ticket that it would have cost them had they purchased season tickets & amortized in the PSL costs.

If tickets were hard to come by, which they are in several market areas where PSL's work, it might be a different story. That is not & rarely has been for Vikings games.

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Originally Posted by singersp

With that said, it seems to me it could be very costly & difficult to upgrade your seats, which many season ticket holders try to do.

If after a couple of years you want to upgrade your 2 seats that you paid a $4,000 PSL fee for, you're not only going to take a huge loss on that fee when you try to resell it, but you now have to buy yet another higher price PSL seating to make that upgrade.

So if you had purchased two $75 seats with a PSL of $4,000 ($2,000 ea) & you sold the PSL's 2 years later for half price to make an upgrade, those $75 seats just cost you $125 ea for every game you had over that 2 year period.

Again, in our market area IMO our supply & demand on season tickets & game day tickets is similar to that in Jacksonville. There's currently & always has been plenty of season tickets to be had w/o paying PSL's & lately we can't even sell out games.

On a side note, do ticket brokers have to purchase PSL's for all the seats they are buying to resell?

At the end of the day, I see the number of season ticket holders declining, even with the addition of the new stadium due to the PSL fees. In our market area, in our economy, I believe it's difficult for many of the typical season ticket holders to commit to buying season tickets over the course of several decades to justify paying the PSL fees.

If they want to see a game, they'll walk up to the ticket counter & pay face value for a $75 ticket instead of paying $100+ for a $75 ticket that it would have cost them had they purchased season tickets & amortized in the PSL costs.

If tickets were hard to come by, which they are in several market areas where PSL's work, it might be a different story. That is not & rarely has been for Vikings games.

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I was checking some other team sites out regarding psl's and upgrading, you do have the choice of going through the team to upgrade based on what the have available and paying the difference or using broker, there are also some fees for tranferring psl and the Panters to offer financing for you psl on 18 or 48 month terms with a 25% down payement..... I'm surprised Red McComb being the car salesman he is did do this himself to get a staduim

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Originally Posted by Purple Floyd

However you slice it, the revenue isn't shared by the NFL so it has been primarily used as a source of profit for the teams. How you want to account for it on the ledger is semantics.





But your 2 seconds didn't really tell us squat about what a ticket will be and the reason for us not having hard numbers is because none have been provided and my guess is until it is built they don't want the public to know. they certainly didn't want that info out before the vote was taken.

I have put it out to you and so far you have never given a good answer as to how the prices aren't going to go up considering all of the added expenses to the stadium The money doesn't just flow out of ziggy's butt.

Take the Cowboys as an example. So the ticket price averages 110.00. There is at least an 85,000 seat capacity ( expandable to 100,000)

So you take 110x85,000 and you get a number of 9,350,000 dollars of revenue a game from just seating.

Now, our stadium will hold about 65,000. To get to the same revenue number you would need to charge 143.84 per ticket to equal the same revenue. the stadiums as far as we know right now will have a similar cost so they would need to have similar revenue to hit break even.

At 65,000 seats, if we only charge say 90 dollars a ticket it only generates 5,850,000 per game in ticket revenue which is a significant reduction from the revenue generated to make the cowboys facility solvent.

Additionally the team charges 78 per ticket average on 65,000 seats right now in a stadium that is paid for and isn't 1 billion in the hole on day 1 and the resulting 5,070,000 in revenue results in a yearly operating loss on the current facility.


So with that said, how much do you figure the team needs to generate the revenue needed to sustain a new billion dollar stadium and still make a profit for the owner? how does that translate to per ticket prices?





yeah, and they are running an operating loss on the facility at that price and the building is paid for.



The indy stadium was about 300 million less expensive than what the Vikings are proposing which will change the ticket price.I am not sure about all of the cost structures but my guess is that will make a pretty decent bump in ticket prices to make up for just as going from a 700,000 house to a 1,000,000 house adds 2300 to the monthly mortgage. The city of indy also had to impose additional sales taxes to make the stadium solvent within the first 2 years of operation so basically they transferred the cost to the general public and away from the fan base.

Anyway I hope you are right and they find some magic fairy dust that makes the costs of the stadium shrink.

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Come on man, you know better than that.

First of all - the Vikings don't pay for operating costs on the new stadium - no more than they do with the Metrodome. They LEASE the stadium. The Stadium Authority, similar to the MSFC, will handle operating costs.

Second, as has been the case for, oh 20 years or so, the NFL has revenue sharing in place for standard tickets. Hiking the cost of standard tickets will NOT result in some significant increase in revenue to the Vikings. So your argument that the Vikings will have to hike prices on tickets to help cover their lease or operating expenses is not valid. The plan to help supplant the extra cost of lease (which in turn funds operating expenses) is to have many, many more non-revenue sharing seats such as club seats and suites. In fact, that was the whole point of the new stadium - because the metrodome couldn't support enough non-revenue sharing seats.

One of the big reasons for nfl revenue sharing was to be able to offer tickets at prices that would be able to sell out stadiums regardless of the market. New York and Dallas can charge over a hundred dollars for the average ticket because of the market they are in. Minnesota (and most markets) cannot. Not only is there no fiscal reason to hike the prices like you are suggesting, but the market wouldn't support it.

You don't need magic fairy dust to know that we aren't going to see $100 average tickets in Minnesota. I stand by the max of $85 average tickets.