AT&T Stadium should always be shroud in Cowboys colors, but as of recently, it seems that the fans are pretty sick of seeing Eagles green. Apparently, Cowboys fans don’t like what they see every time the Eagles come to clash their favorite team. During the last Sunday match, off the field situation was pretty much like on the field – total domination by the Eagles both players and fans. The AT&T Stadium stands were filled with green jerseys, and throughout some crucial moments, cheers from Philly fans were surprisingly audible.
Both us, as well as the Cowboys fans, are wondering just how this could happen? One of the probable causes is pretty much the high cost of personal seat licenses, and for those who do not know this, those are the fees the Cowboys charge just for the right to buy a season ticket. Apparently, the PSL agreements are required for every season ticket, and the price of the tickets at the online reseller STR Marketplace go from $2,450 for a seat in the nosebleed section to a whopping $200,000 if you want to be on the club level. To put a cherry on top of all this suffering, you will have to go on a waiting list if you want to buy tickets from Cowboys, who also offer financing over 29 years at 8%.
If you want the season tickets than you will have to cough up from $700 to $3,600 for ten games (eight in the regular season, two in preseason). Math continues, and expenses keep piling up with parking costs (range from $30 to $100) plus there are concessions, which include $9 beers, $6 hot dogs and $5 soft drinks. When all of this sums up, you get a hefty price, thanks to which many Cowboys fans had to sell tickets for at least a few games to no matter whom. This is exactly what happened last Sunday against Eagles and what, most likely, resulted in a home stadium filled with rivals’ fans.
Fans also have something to say about this, and one of them, Shane Hensley stated “There are a lot of Eagles fans, but there are a lot of enemy fans that seem to come in here too,” and he added “People seem to sell a lot of tickets here. The cost of the PSL is too high.” This claim is confirmed by the fact that there are a thousand seats listed on StubHub for Thursday’s game vs. the Los Angeles Chargers, and as of Tuesday the get-in price was $6 for standing room only, and club-level prices topped at $700.
Some fans recollected the early periods when the tickets were a lot cheaper. Mark Wilson and his son, Robert, owned the season Cowboys tickets since 1967 and they remembered that back then those were just $5 per game. They also said that, since 2009 when the stadium opened, they had to share their season-ticket package with two other fans to ease the financial burden. They are at least loyal to the club in a way that, when none of them can make it they try to sell their tickets to friends and family. They also know plenty of fans who try to get the highest return for their tickets in the secondary market. They manage to make a good return of their yearly costs by selling tickets to fans of popular teams such as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers – “We’re not in it to make money … the good games that we could make money on, we want to go to those games. So it’s been rare that we’ve sold the tickets,” Mark stated.
Sometime last year CBS Money Watch made an estimate of the average cost of attendance for a single game at AT&T Stadium, and they came up with a number of $268,28 per person. That is, by the way, the third-highest in the NFL right behind San Francisco and Washington. Robert Wilson stated that “It’s much more commercialized at this stadium, but that’s the way everything is going these days. It feels like more of an event as opposed to back in the day when we would go. It was more tradition and family.” These changes are also noticed by Travis Andres, whose family owns a suite for their company business, and he stated that “It’s hard not having a true home-field advantage. There’s a lot of loud cheering for the other team. It’s not like the 12th Man or anything here.”
