What Is A Personal Seat License (PSL) And Should I Purchase One?

Photo of a poorly attended New York Yankees game at Yankee Stadium.

Image Credit: Ted Kerwin (CC BY 2.0)

Have you ever thought about how cool it would be to be a season ticket holder of your favorite sports team? Few sports fans have the disposable income to make that dream a reality these days but let's admit, we've all thought about it. The many opponents and players you would see in your hometown. The many friendships you would make in your section. The legendary tailgates you would throw beginning during the wee morning hours on game day. Unfortunately, buying season tickets is not always as simple as just sending a personal check to your team's ticket office. Many teams these days, especially NFL teams, are now requiring fans to purchase what's called "personal seat licenses" or "permanent seat licenses" before even spending a dime on tickets for the season. What exactly are PSLs?

Glad you asked because for the longest time, we didn't know either. In the simplest definition, a PSL is a paid license that entitles a fan to a certain seat in a stadium or arena. Want to get rid of your season tickets? You must first unload your license onto a fan that wants to buy your seats for an entire season. If you decide not to purchase season tickets one year and aren't able to sell the license, the license gets forfeited back to the team. Sounds like a big racket, huh? Well, just like the rest of the sports world, it is. Most often, the money generated from the selling of these licenses will go towards covering the costs of a stadium's construction. A PSL typically won't expire until a team leaves it's current home and begins playing in a new stadium or arena. At that point, it can be transferred to the team's new home.

As you can already imagine, there are thousands upon thousands of fans that object to the Personal Seat Licenses, especially New York Giants and New York Jets fans who occupy the same stadium; Metlife Stadium. See for yourself.

While buying a PSL is a huge liability, there are marketplaces out there where fans can not only recoup their money but also make a profit. We have profiled four of the biggest PSL marketplaces in the country below and listed the organizations they have partnered with.

PSL Source

Website: PSLSource.com

PSL Source, LLC is an independent broker of personal seat licenses (PSLs), charter seat licenses (CSLs), charter ownership agreements (COAs) and seat builder's licenses (SBLs) . Like the other companies listed below, they are basically the middle man between a season ticket holder selling the rights to their season tickets and a buyer interested in purchasing season tickets. They are based out Charlotte, North Carolina and work heavily with their home team - the Carolina Panthers.

They charge a 10% commission on the final sales price of every transaction and listing your season tickets with them is free. They do charge a transfer fee and it varies by team and the time of the year the transfer occurs. If you would like to skip the process of locating a buyer for your season ticket rights, PSL Source has a "liquidation option". With this option, you would sell your season ticket rights to the company for 40%-60% of it's market value. Aside from the teams listed below, PSL Source also has a partnership with Maxim Tickets and are able to also offer NFL fans single game tickets.

PSL Source Partnerships

Baltimore Ravens
Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Dallas Cowboys
Houston Texans
New York Giants
New York Jets
Philadelphia Eagles
Pittsburgh Steelers
Seattle Seahawks
San Francisco 49ers
St. Louis Rams
Tennessee Titans
Maxim Tickets

Season Ticket Rights Marketplace

Website: STRMarketplace.com

STR Marketplace was founded by Kyle Burks in 2006 and are based in Houston, Texas. After purchasing 4 Houston Texans PSLs in the parking lot of a shopping mall for $20K, Kyle came up with the idea to create this fine company. He realized how much risk was involved with no middle man to handle the transfer of season ticket rights. Since then, he has managed to form partnerships with the teams listed below.

The company offers a marketplace for Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs), seat location rights, RV/camping locations (tailgate passes) and waiting list number systems (Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers).

Unlike the other three PSL listing companies, STR marketplace assigns each partner their own website that they can market on their own. They also offer consulting services for teams that may be interested in starting a personal seat license program or teams that may need help with pricing their season tickets. And if a team is moving from their old stadium and needs help relocating season ticket holders into the new stadium, guess what? They can help with that too.

STR Marketplace's Partnerships

Pittsburgh Steelers
Chicago Bears
Baltimore Ravens
Cincinnati Bengals
Seattle Seahawks
San Francisco 49ers
Tennessee Titans
Houston Texans
St. Louis Rams
Indianapolis Colts
New York Giants
Philadelphia Eagles
Kansas Speedway
Texas Motor Speedway
San Francisco Giants
St. Louis Cardinals

Seat Dibs

Website: SeatDibs.com

Seats Dibs specializes in renewal rights for seat licenses, seat location rights, parking rights, charter seat licenses (CSLs) and charter ownership agreements (COAs). Whether you're a buyer or seller, they operate in four simple steps. 1) Seller creates a free listing of their seats. 2) Seller negotiates price with buyer or accepts offer. 3) The buyer pays Seat Dibs directly as the middle man in the transaction. SeatDibs handles all of the paper work with the team's ticket office in order to complete the transaction for you. 4) Seat Dibs pays the seller minus a 5% commission of the final sales price. On average, a transaction takes three weeks with Seat Dibs.

Seat Dibs' Partnerships

Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Pittsburgh Steelers
Dallas Cowboys
Houston Texans
Cincinnati Bengals
New York Jets
Tennessee Titans
Philadelphia Eagles
Indianapolis Colts
Seattle Seahawks
Baltimore Ravens
Cleveland Browns
St. Louis Rams
St. Louis Cardinals
San Francisco Giants
San Diego Padres
Houston Astros
Minnesota Twins
Toronto Raptors
Utah Jazz
Toronto Maple Leafs
Texas Motor Speedway
Talladega Speedway
Churchill Downs

Stadium PSL

Website: StadiumPSL

Stadium PSL was created in 1999 in conjunction with the Tennessee Titans and their inaugural season. They have since branched out and have formed partnerships with the teams listed below. Both they and Seat Zilla (a ticket reseller) are subsidiaries of Choose Your Seats, Inc. According to their website, registered users can create and delete listings of their own season tickets, submit photos of the field from their seats, provide descriptions of their seats for potential buyers and submit offers to purchase PSLs. For every transaction between seller and buyer, Stadium PSL gets a 3% commission.

Stadium PSL Partnerships

Baltimore Ravens
Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Dallas Cowboys
Houston Texans
New York Giants
New York Jets
Philadelphia Eagles
Pittsburgh Steelers
Seattle Seahawks
San Francisco 49ers
St. Louis Rams
Tennessee Titans

As you've probably noticed, most organizations that require the purchase of personal seat licenses are NFL teams. Hey! These massive stadiums that hold 70,000+ fans have to be financed somehow. The owners sure aren't going to reach into their own pockets and contribute. PSLs are a better alternative than a city or county taxing it's entire population to construct a new venue. Not everyone is interested in sports and attending games.

Related Articles

Find Your Seat