If there's a lot of green rolling around on eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY ) StubHub site next month, you're probably seeing more than just money changing hands. Well-heeled New York Jets fans will no doubt be hitting the site during the week of Oct. 19, to try to secure one of 2,000 field-level seats that will go on the bidding block for the Green and White's new stadium.
Let's just hope the Jets faithful aren't as disappointed as they were after this past weekend's loss on the field.
Personal seat licenses will be required for the right to purchase season tickets when the Jets move into their new digs in two years. PSLs have become a costly reality for sports fans in recent years, as teams moving into new stadiums typically charge between $1,000 to $10,000 per seat to help offset the gargantuan construction costs.
These licenses are one-time payments that grant the buyer the right to purchase season tickets for the lifetime of the stadium.
The Jets will be the first team to let the open markets decide what these licenses are worth, rather than just slap a price on them. But the team won't be doing this with all of the seats at the new stadium. For now, at least, the auction is just for 2,000 seats in the Coaches Club section.
The auction is a win for eBay, of course. Beyond just the big-ticket purchases themselves, this event will warm fans up to eBay's StubHub site as a trusted source for game-day tickets. If the experiment proves successful, other teams with new stadiums in the work may follow suit, since the deal gives StubHub credibility in the same way that event ticketers such as Ticketmaster (Nasdaq: TKTM ) and Live Nation (NYSE: LYV ) pump out concert admissions.
Football is a huge sport, obviously. Fans are willing to go well beyond watching the free games on commercial television. They pay up for DirecTV's (Nasdaq: DTV ) exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket package and are attracted to Sirius XM Radio's (Nasdaq: SIRI ) Sirius, which is the NFL's exclusive satellite-radio partner. So they'll surely pay up for prime seats on StubHub.
If, in the process, eBay's site becomes seen as more than just a place for distressed fans trying to unload a pair of seats to an upcoming game, who knows what else could happen? In a year or two, maybe teams will begin auctioning off prime season tickets on an annual basis through StubHub. Ticketmaster has teamed up with NFL teams to give existing season-ticket holders a sanctioned resale marketplace, with its Ticket Exchange program. StubHub may be on the way to beat the competition to the punch by opening up the bidding process for choice seats right from the start.
The field is long, and the game is just getting started. Will Brett Favre still be playing come 2010? Jets fans are unlikely to care at this point. They'd just better start counting their pennies, because these license auctions for field seats are likely to reach nosebleed prices.
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