THEIR TICKET OUT
Longtime Jets fans staying away from MetLife in droves
WHEN the Jets kick off Sunday afternoon against the Dolphins at MetLife Stadium, Jeff Cohen figures he will be wrapping up a round of golf. Dom Florenza will be heading to a wedding. Rich Pittala will be meeting up with a friend who roots for Miami to watch the game on TV.
The three of them normally would be at MetLife. They are former Jets season-ticket holders, a fraternity that added plenty of members this offseason with many fans saying enough is enough with the team that has not had a home playoff game since January 2003 and won’t have one in the foreseeable future.
The Jets won’t say just how many season-ticket holders they lost this year, but judging anecdotally from email, Twitter replies and conversations with fans, the renewal rate this year plunged to new depths.
It is all part of a bizarre season for Jets fans. Sunday is the first of what figures to be eight strange home games this season at MetLife, where fans are unsure whether they should be rooting for a Jets win or a loss in hopes of landing the No. 1 draft pick.
Like many others who walked away from their seats, any cheering or booing by Cohen, Lorenza and Pittala will be done from a couch or maybe a barstool, far from the swamps of the Meadowlands.
“This is the first year I can ever remember as a longtime Jets fan where there is no hope,” said Cohen, a vice president of sales for a Midtown jewelry manufacturer who has been going to games since the Jets played at Shea Stadium. “It’s a weird feeling. I don’t want them to win.”
All three said the direction of the team in 2017 had very little to do with their decision to give up the seats. Surely, though, if the Jets were in position to contend this year, more fans would be keeping their tickets.
Instead, the blend of the cost, the stadium experience and the product on the field recently seems to have driven many loyal Jets fans away.
Cohen’s family had tickets at Shea. He picked them up after they moved to Giants Stadium, where he had four seats. He dropped down to one after the move to MetLife Stadium, financing a PSL and sitting in a section with some of the same people he sat with at the old stadium.
He did not like MetLife Stadium from the start.
“There was something missing,” Cohen, who lives in Basking Ridge, N.J., said. “It is not the same experience.”
Even in the stadium that more often feels like MetLifeless, Cohen enjoyed going to games, but that enjoyment dimmed first in the John Idzik era and then last year when the team went 5-11.
“I think a big, big problem is the personality of the team under Todd Bowles,” Cohen said. “He’s a painful coach to watch. You don’t get anything from his press conferences. You sit there saying, why am I paying for this?”
Pittala, who lives in West Long Branch, N.J., bought tickets with friends when MetLife opened in 2010. In the early days, he said he could sell a ticket to one game that would cover the cost of his season tickets.
“As time went on, that wasn’t happening anymore,” said Pittala, who works in the corporate office of Bed, Bath & Beyond. “The seats were selling for $40 and you’re dropping $220 a ticket. It’s frustrating. I couldn’t justify it anymore.”
Cohen and Florenza both said they are walking away from their PSL, even though they still owe the Jets money until 2024.
“What? Are they going to do start suing their fan base?” Cohen asked. Both said the Jets have not pursued any PSL payment from them.
But Pittala said even though he did not renew his tickets, he will still make his $900 PSL payment in November, perhaps willing to return in a few years.
Pittala said it will be an odd feeling watching on TV on Sunday.
“Absolutely. I’ll get antsy. I’ll feel guilty,” he said.
Florenza, a C.P.A. who lives in Mountainside, N.J., bought his tickets in 1984 when the Jets moved to New Jersey. He bought four PSLs when MetLife opened. Florenza said he just did not feel like it was worth spending the money anymore.
Florenza said he won’t look back at his decision.
“There’s no regrets,” Florenza said. “Thirty-three years is a long time. My first marriage didn’t last 33 years.”
His divorce, and many others, from the Jets was finalized this offseason.