It is a crock. Of course it is. You can couch it any way you like.
A personal seat license offers pride in ownership. It's another line in the will. It's another contested item in the divorce.
It socks only those who will attend Bengals games, and that is how it should be. A Bengals personal seat license is ''reasonably priced,'' in the estimation of NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
''If you allocate the cost of a seat license over the expected life of the stadium, (the cost) is really rather modest,'' said Tagliabue. The commissioner suggested spending $24 for three movie tickets was more exorbitant. But before you buy a movie ticket, you don't pay for the right to sit in the theater seat, though we better not give Hollywood studios and theater owners any ideas.
Money for nothing
Spending $500 on a Bengals personal seat license is an investment. Buy low. When the Bengals win it all, sell high!
(Probably, stadium PSLs will not appear in Morningstar anytime soon. If you want to invest long-term, a small-cap aggressive-growth fund could be a better play.)
You can couch it any way you like. Everyone has.
But it's still a crock.
Any way you slice it.
A seat license amounts to money for nothing. Imagine paying for the right to pay for dinner at The Precinct.
Now for the good news.
The NFL is way behind in this sort of thing. Colleges have been doing it for years. Colleges call their PSLs ''donations,'' so you'll feel noble while cleaning out your wallet. But it's the same deal.
If you want to watch UC play basketball, you have to join the booster club and buy football tickets.
You have to feel noble every year. At Ohio State, nobility can amount to six figures, if you want great seats at football games. At UC's Shoemaker Center, it's anywhere from $550 to $4,400 a year, for the right to pay for hoops tickets.
The average Bengals PSL will go for $500, a one-time fee. So: One way of looking at PSLs is to feel good you haven't had to buy them until now. Think of all the money you've saved.
Compared to what other teams have charged for their PSLs, the Bengals are practically giving them away. Team emperor Mike Brown is not out to make a killing, the way Art Modell did in Baltimore. Good ol' Art made $40 million from the sale of Baltimore Ravens seat licenses.
Relax, it's only half-bad
Brown is trying to raise a mere $20 million. He only wants to keep his team competitive. The St. Louis Rams held their fans up for $67 million, $45 million of which the team kept.
The $500 average cost of a Cincinnati PSL is less than half what Baltimore and Nashville charged. It's one-third the fan-fleecing the Raiders perpetrated in Oakland, where licenses went for an average of $1,500.
You can take comfort in knowing that, even though PSLs are a crock, they are a smaller crock here than anywhere else.
And they aren't going away. When Tagliabue talks of ''privatizing'' the cost of stadium construction, this is what he means. Monday night, he and Brown wined and dined local business thickwallets, trying to convince them of the wisdom in leasing luxury boxes.
Because there is nothing like the thrill of wet bars and linen tablecloths at an NFL game.
Starting now, every new stadium will be paid for in some part through licenses and luxury seating. It's a crock. It's also how business is done in the NFL. If we want in, this is the ante.
And of course we do. Because what if we're left behind? ''The NFL is a national obsession,'' Tagliabue said.
The commissioner suggested he feels the average fan's pain. He has season tickets to the Washington Redskins, and has received club-seat price lists from them. The 'Skins will be in a new stadium next year.
I didn't ask Tagliabue if he's going to keep his seats, and he didn't say. My guess, though, is he will. For investment purposes and sheer entertainment value, it beats going to the movies.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments. He can be reached at 768-8454.
