FAQs ABOUT PSLs
What are personal seat licenses? One-time fees for the right to buy season tickets in a particular seat.
Do the Falcons plan to require PSLs for all season tickets in the new stadium? Yes.
What are the prices? So far the Falcons have announced PSL prices only for the 7,700 club seats. Those range from $10,000 to $45,000. The team has said PSL prices for the rest of the 71,500-seat stadium will be set by summer at various levels below $10,000, but hasn't been more specific.
After buying PSLs, how much will fans have to pay for season tickets in the new stadium? The club seats — seats with access to lounge areas — will range from $325 to $385 per game, or $3,250 to $3,850 per season. Those prices won't change for the first three years, but can increase thereafter. Season-ticket prices haven't been set for the rest of the stadium.
Will a Falcons PSL owner be guaranteed access to tickets for other major events in the stadium? Generally, no. Buyers of the 1,200 PSLs priced at $45,000 will be guaranteed the right to buy tickets for all stadium events, but not necessarily in the same seat.
Who gets the first option to buy the PSL for a given seat? The Falcons are first offering "roughly comparable" seats to all current season-ticket holders. Requests to buy open or vacated seats will then be filled in order of season-ticket seniority. PSLs will be made available to new customers after the seat-relocation process is completed.
What happens if PSL owners don't renew their season tickets by each year's deadline? Unless PSL owners sell or transfer their licenses to a third party, not renewing season tickets would forfeit the licenses back to the Falcons, who could re-sell them.
Why are club seats, mostly located in the middle bowl of the Georgia Dome, largely moving into the lower bowl in the new stadium? That has been a design trend in NFL stadiums built in the past decade, enabling teams to charge the highest prices for the seats closest to the action.
How will PSL revenue be used? Toward the cost of building the stadium.
PRICE LIST
A breakdown of Falcons’ PSL prices for club seats:
Lower-bowl seats between the 45-yard lines: $45,000
Lower-bowl seats between the 30- and 45-yard lines: $20,000
Lower-bowl seats between the 18- and 30-yard lines: $15,000
Mezzanine-level seats (above the suites) between the 30-yard lines: $10,000
Note: Falcons haven’t yet set PSL prices for non-club seats.
PRICE LIST
A breakdown of Falcons’ PSL prices for club seats:
Lower-bowl seats between the 45-yard lines: $45,000
Lower-bowl seats between the 30- and 45-yard lines: $20,000
Lower-bowl seats between the 18- and 30-yard lines: $15,000
Mezzanine-level seats (above the suites) between the 30-yard lines: $10,000
Note: Falcons haven't yet set PSL prices for non-club seats.
Four weeks into a controversial two-year effort to sell personal seat licenses for their new stadium, the Falcons have closed deals with some season-ticket holders, have had the door slammed shut by some, and have been put on hold by others until more prices are set.
The Falcons had collected and deposited $2.48 million in down payments on PSLs as of Thursday, according to data obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, the state agency that will own the stadium.
The Falcons wouldn’t say how many seats or how much potential PSL revenue those down payments represent, contending it’s premature to do so. Most buyers interviewed by the AJC said their down payments were 10 percent, although one said he put down 33 percent.
PSLs — common at NFL stadiums around the country but never before used by an Atlanta pro sports team — are one-time fees for the right to buy season tickets in a particular seat. The Falcons began selling PSLs on Jan. 12 for the new stadium’s 7,700 club seats, at prices of $10,000 to $45,000. The team said prices for non-club seats will be set by summer at various levels below $10,000.
Michael Drake, vice president of Legends Global Sales, the firm hired by the Falcons to run the PSL program, said he is encouraged by the early results.
“From an overall perspective, based on this point in previous projects, we’re in a good place,” Drake said. “There are a lot of moving parts, but the vibe in the (sales) meetings has been great. … We’re real pleased with how it’s going so far.”
Yet there is no shortage of skepticism among Falcons fans about the PSL market here, especially with the team coming off back-to-back losing seasons.
“They are … asking you to pay a huge fee for the right to buy tickets at high prices. I just do not see the value in that,” said long-time season-ticket holder Mike Maguire, who went through a sales presentation by phone and declined to buy.
About 1,000 season-ticket account holders have met with sales representatives at the stadium preview center on Northside Parkway, Drake said. The Falcons will attempt to schedule appointments with all season-ticket holders by November. Thereafter, sales will turn to new customers. The stadium, under construction next to the Georgia Dome, is slated to open in 2017.
For this article, the AJC interviewed, by phone or email, season-ticket holders whose reaction to the PSL sales pitch ran the gamut — buyers enthused about the stadium, non-buyers outraged about the prices and others who say they won’t buy at the current prices but may consider cheaper options later.
Mary D. Gay, a season-ticket holder for six years, said she went to the preview center having decided against buying. But she was so impressed by the presentation, especially the three-dimensional model of the stadium, that “I stopped thinking about the money.”
She wound up buying four seat licenses — two at $15,000 each and two at $20,000 each — to split between business and personal use.
“I just thought the stadium was awesome and wanted to be a part of it,” she said.
Eric Smith, a Kingsport, Tenn., ophthalmologist, who drives 4 1/2 hours to Atlanta for Falcons games, said he signed contracts for two mezzanine-level seats, each carrying a $10,000 PSL.
“The stadium is going to be spectacular,” Smith said. “It’s going to be a landmark. …
“I’d rather not have to pay it,” he added, “but I’m not sure how you could build a $1.4 billion stadium without someone paying for it.”
The PSLs aren’t Smith’s largest investment in the Falcons: He previously bought a condominium to use when in town.
“I’m pretty invested in the team,” he said.
But others said the PSL prices are insurmountable obstacles.
Adam Pye said the prices will force him, his father and his brother out of their lower-bowl seats near the 50-yard line. He traces the family’s association with the Falcons to the mid-1960s, when “Aunt Julia” had the winning entry in a contest to name the team. Pye’s father bought season tickets in 1992, the first year in the Georgia Dome, and gradually upgraded seat location.
Pye said his family plans to meet with a Falcons sales representative, but won’t pay the $45,000-per-seat PSL fee for a comparable location and is “unlikely to relocate” to other seats.
“Doing so at a somewhat reasonable price would put us back in seats equivalent to those we upgraded from a decade ago in the Dome,” Pye said. “While those should still be good, we’re probably not going to be inclined to take a forced downgrade after investing so many thousands of dollars in the team since the early ’90s.”
He wrote an impassioned essay about his family’s disappointment in the PSL plan, expressing concern the prime seats will be bought largely by corporations and concluding: “I’m simply sad that the 50th anniversary of the team will also mark the final year of our family tradition. I’ll continue to love our team and watch every game, but for the first time since 1992 it won’t be from in the stadium with my Dad and brother.”
The Falcons haven’t said how much money they expect to raise from PSL sales. If all club seats are sold at the prices announced so far, that alone would generate about $150 million.
Such numbers gave Blake Turner an idea.
He and his brother have season tickets for four seats on the 50-yard line that have been in their family for 37 years. Feeling “betrayed,” and having ruled out paying $180,000 in seat-license fees for four similarly located seats in the new stadium, Turner decided to try his luck on the other side of the PSL business: He posted an ad on eBay, offering to sell his “priority seating choice” for a minimum of $205,000.
He has received no bids.
Drake Craig, president of an investment management company and a Falcons season-ticket holder for about 12 years, bought four $20,000 PSLs in the lower bowl near the 40-yard line, calling the purchase “an investment in entertainment” for himself, his wife and two sons.
“It’s a big expense that obviously didn’t exist before,” Craig said. “But at the same time, just understanding how other stadiums have been built and the associated PSLs, I guess we shouldn’t have been terribly surprised this was going to take place.”
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