When it comes to NFL ticketing and Personal Seat Licenses, the biggest wallet always wins. With the Oakland Raiders set to move to Las Vegas in 2020, working class Las Vegas Raiders fans should start saving those pennies because the ‘Sin City Raiders Experience’ is going to cost you a few bucks. Despite excessive prices, the PSLs have almost sold out, with roughly 70 percent coming from buyers with Nevada addresses.
Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs) — a typical practice in pro sports — for the new Raiders stadium here in Vegas went on sale this past week, with prices ranging from $3,900 to $15,000. More so, PSLs for club and other premium seats range from $20,000 to $75,000 each. Mind you, these prices aren’t for tickets. They’re for the right to buy tickets.
Brutal.
“It’s kind of like the night clubs,” said Joshua Primack, a longtime Las Vegas resident and real estate agent. “The ones who pay for the expensive tables get the prime spots. You have to include the people who are willing to spend and weed out the people who aren’t. It’s good business.”
Good business? Yes. Hard on the average fan? Definitely. And while it may seem excessive, it’s not when compared to other stadiums around the NFL. The Atlanta Falcons sold PSLs in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opened this past season, for $45,000 per seat. The Minnesota Vikings, who cleverly changed the named to “stadium-builder licenses,” charged somewhere between $500 and $9,500 per seat. The San Francisco 49ers Levi’s Stadium? PSL’s ranged from $2,000 to $80,000.
This, of course, doesn’t include the price of tickets either. Tickets are expected to keep up with the league average but, as Golden Knights fans can attest, they don’t always stay that way. This alone makes PSL’s a hefty but lucrative investment.
Personal Seat Licenses give licensees the right to purchase season and playoff tickets for 30 years.
PSLs as a family heirloom
For Primack, whose family bought the rights to own season tickets for Denver Broncos games back in 1970, being able to keep your same seats for decades is something special. His family travels to Denver and back every year for roughly three or four games, then sells the remaining game tickets to Broncos fans first, then to incoming travelers if the market isn’t there or they aren’t simply gifting them to family or friends. They’ve become close with fellow fans who have also been attending games in the same seats for generations.
Children grow, elders age, and, every year, they all come together to root on their favorite sports team as a community and family.
“It’s our family heirloom,” Primack said. “It is a real privilege to have these tickets for our family.”
Primack says his family usually sells enough tickets to help finance a family trip to Denver for all the playoff games when the season moves into the postseason. It has become a family reunion, of sorts.
Fans from teams like Dallas, Green Bay and New England pay what amounts to crackhead prices when it comes to their teams. It’s not unheard of they receive offers twice the ticket value or more. Considering they’ve had the seats since 1970, long before the family moved to Las Vegas in the 1980s, it’s been a great way to help support their favorite team on the backs of other team’s fans.
In other words, it’s an investment as much as it is a fan purchase.
The PSLs are a great investment for locals
Once can see the potential for owning PSLs here in Vegas, the entertainment capital of the world. If Vegas Golden Knights playoff tickets can go for more than $1,000, one can imagine the prices some of these seats will command. One of the biggest selling points for the Raiders and their move to Vegas was the marketability of Vegas as a destination, not just a fan base.
Raiders owner Mark Davis is making his rounds, and continues to build support within the community. These seats are a direct reflection of the potential this team, and its new stadium, bring to Las Vegas. Fans from all over the world will converge here just to watch their favorite teams from back home while experiencing their yearly “Vegas Trip.” In a town of “Vegas Baby” tourist cliches, what’s a few more jersey-wearing stereotypical travelers?
So, while some will bitch and moan about the excessive prices these PSLs are running for, one must remember you have to spend money to make money. These PSLs are an investment, and — for some — a family heirloom to keep for generations of Raider fans to enjoy long after the initial sting of cost wears away.
