Sports

FUROR: N.J. Lawmaker Vows To Ban PSLs

Being Forced To Pay Upwards Of $20,000 For Right To Buy Best Seats In New Giants Stadium Angers Chiappone

TRENTON (AP) ― A New Jersey lawmaker wants to stop New Jersey sports teams from charging fans for the right to buy tickets.

Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone said he'll propose legislation banning so-called personal seat licenses at New Jersey sports facilities.

His vow comes after the New York Giants announced they will charge up to $20,000 for the right to buy tickets.

"Sadly, the Giants management is literally putting a price tag on loyalty," said Chiappone, D-Hudson. Chiappone said he is a lifelong Giants fan but not a season ticket holder.

Fans who cannot afford the PSL attached to their current seats will either be forced to purchase seats elsewhere in the new stadium or give up their season tickets, he said.

"The years countless fans have spent in the same seats cheering through the good times and the bad now are worthless," he said. "Thousands more who have spent generations on the season ticket waiting list will now see their rightful place in line taken by someone whose only prerequisite is the ability to write a big check."

Giants spokesman Pat Hanlon said the team had no immediate comment on Chiappone's proposal.

More than 80 percent of Giants' season ticket holders will be charged from $1,000 to $7,500 for the right to buy tickets to the team's new stadium. Licenses for some of the best seats will cost as much as $20,000.

Giants chief executive John Mara last week said the fee will raise $371 million toward the $1.6 billion stadium being built near the current Giants Stadium in East Rutherford and paid for by the Giants and Jets. It is scheduled to open for the 2010 season.

Seat license fees have become a common means of helping sports team owners finance new stadiums.

But Chiappone said his measure would give all fans an equal chance to access season tickets.

"Something is terribly wrong when the size of a bank account becomes the barometer by which we determine whether or not someone is a real fan," Chiappone said.

The Jets have not announced whether they will require season ticket holders to buy PSLs.

Mara last week said he has received some complaints, including a few from fans who insisted that his late father, Wellington, would never have required PSLs when he ran the team.

"And believe me, I feel that," John Mara said. "But my father was not faced with this kind of debt on a new building like this either, and we thought that we had to make this tough decision."

(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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