Skip to main content
Advertising

Giants to sell personal seat licenses to help build $1.6 billion stadium

TRENTON, N.J. -- The Giants will charge fans between $1,000 and $20,000 for the right to buy season tickets in the new stadium they're building with the Jets.

The Jets haven't said whether they also plan to sell personal seat licenses for their games in the new stadium.

A Jets spokesman didn't immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday afternoon.

Giants co-owner John Mara said most of the 82,500 seats in the stadium, scheduled to open in 2010, will carry seat license fees of $1,000. Less than 5,000 seats will carry license fees of $20,000.

Mara acknowledged he is worried about angering longtime fans of the Super Bowl champions. The charge applies to each seat a ticket-holder owns.

"We tried hard to come up with a plan that guarantees everybody the opportunity to stay in the building," he said.

He said it would be "extremely difficult" to build the $1.6 billion stadium in the Meadowlands -- whose cost is being split evenly by the two teams -- without asking fans to help pay for it through seat licenses. Mara said the license fees will raise $300 million to $400 million.

Personal seat licenses are used by team owners to build stadiums. The one-time payments guarantee the buyer the right to control the seat for as long as the team plays in that stadium, and can be transferred or sold for whatever the market will bear. Besides paying once for the seat license, fans still have to pay the cost of season tickets each year.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.

This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Please use the Contact Us link in our site footer to report an issue.