How Do You Spell "Extortion"?

How Do You Spell “Extortion”?

The Los Angeles Rams have settled a class-action lawsuit filed by St. Louis football fans.  The team will pay $24 million to holders of personal seat licenses from when the team played in St. Louis.  The Rams moved back to LA following the 2015 season after playing 21 years in St. Louis.

What’s a personal seat license, you may ask?  It’s the right to buy season’s tickets.  PSLs typically are used with the opening of a new NFL stadium (though a handful of MLB parks have used them, too).  Take Atlanta, for example.  According to the Journal-Constitution, the Falcons raised $233 million from the sale of PSLs as of May 2017; how fitting the Falcons’ new home is named Mercedes-Benz Stadium.  And what happens after you buy the PSL?  Why, then you get to buy season’s tickets.  You see, the PSL is merely a one-time charge. 

Or, in the case of St. Louis, a one-time charge over the course of what was projected to be a 30-year lease between the city and the Rams, which the team managed to break anyhow.  That left fans with nine years’ worth of PSLs good for nothing.  Hence the lawsuit, hence the settlement.  Good for them, I say.

The Rams and Chargers will be sharing a stadium built in considerable part PSLs.  The Los Angeles Times reported in March that one set of seats for the Rams will have a PSL price tag in the $15,000-$35,000 range, not to be confused with a VIP section costing a cool $80,000 a seat.  Remember, that’s the right to buy season’s tickets, separate from the tickets themselves.    

Teams allow fans to sell PSLs to whomever they want, and why not?  Owners get their cut upfront.  It would be wrong not to leave the little guys a few crumbs.