Personal Seat License

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A personal seat license gives the holder the right to buy season tickets for a certain seat in the stadium. This holder can sell the seat license to someone else if they no longer wish to purchase season tickets. However, if the seat license holder chooses not to sell the seat licenses and does not renew the season tickets, the holder forfeits the license back to the team. Most seat licenses are valid for as long as the team plays in the current venue.

Seat licenses can be called various different names- the most common term in North America is "Personal Seat License" and in Europe is "Debenture". The primary reason sporting venues offer PSLs is that the proceeds are used to help pay the debt incurred during the construction of the stadium or arena. Also, many supporters feel that such licenses essentially give fans ownership of his or her seat. But opponents of PSLs see this as another way to extract money from the sports fans.

[edit] Origin of Seat Licenses

The permanent seat license was invented by a Columbus architect, Rick Ohanian, in January of 1987, not seven years thereafter by Charlotte sports marketing agent, Max Muhleman, in 1993, as is commonly believed. The first appearance of the product can be seen in a "Letter to The Editor" from Mr. Ohanian to the Columbus Dispatch, published on March 2, 1987, entitled "Ticketbond is Answer to Financing Proposed Facility".

Those in disagreement with this claim, cite that similar program(s) were in existence among many college fund raising activities, prior to 1987. However, the difference here is the fact that these programs were tax-deductible donations to a scholorship funds, in which case the main "quid-pro-quo" was between the donation and the resultant deduction, not between the donation and the actual seating rights. The seating rights in all these cases were the "icing on the cake", not the cake itself, and it remains to be seen how many of these "College PSLs" would have sold, if any at all, had they not been tax-deductible.

[edit] Seat Licenses Across Teams and Leagues

Here is a list of some of the teams that have seat licenses:

NFL Seat Licenses

MLB Seat Licenses

Car Racing Seat Licenses

NHL Seat Licenses

NBA Seat Licenses

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