BROOK PARK, Ohio - The Cleveland Browns aren’t saying if fans will have to pay one-time permanent seat license fees to secure spots in the new stadium, but if trends elsewhere are any indication, expect to fork over more than $1,000 a seat for all but the most remote locations.
PSL pricing for new stadiums under construction in Buffalo and Nashville start at $750, comparable to the starting points for newer stadiums in Atlanta ($750) and Minneapolis ($500). And they go up - way up - from there, to north of $10,000.
This is money paid out for long-time “rights” to a seat - before adding in the cost of season tickets that increase as teams see fit from year to year. (Elsewhere in the NFL they’re sometimes called personal seat licenses.)
PSLs are not a new concept for long-time Browns fans. They were part of the existing stadium on the lakefront - ranging in price from $250 to $1,500 a seat. There were no PSL charges for the 10,000 Dawg Pound seats.
Previous season ticket holders were given discounts of 10% to 50%. About 57,000 PSLs were sold by opening day in 1999.
PSLs, Cleveland Browns, 1996
As shown by this 1996 story in The Plain Dealer, previous Browns season ticket holders received discounts when the NFL announced its PSL plan for the new stadium. Those PSLs will expire with the last game in the stadium.The Plain Dealer
Will current Cleveland PSLs have value?
The Browns quit selling PSLs by 2013, after demand had fallen off for tickets. But an undisclosed number of Browns fans still own them. Others transferred their rights or lost those rights when they quit renewing tickets.
Under rules spelled out in the PSL terms, the remaining PSLs will expire with the last game in the downtown stadium.
Among the unanswered questions is whether long-time Browns patrons will receive discounts off new PSL pricing, should the Browns make PSLs part of the formula to recover some of their $1.5 billion investment in the $2.4 billion stadium (with the state and Brook Park site-generated taxes expected to pay the rest).
“We haven’t finalized our ticket pricing structure as we are still gathering information necessary to make those decisions,” Browns spokesperson Peter John-Baptiste said when asked about PSLs. “But we do intend to offer a variety of pricing options and payment structures to accommodate as many of our fans as possible.”
Individual ticket prices for the new stadium also have not been determined. But they are almost certain to be higher. Tickets have gone up from an average of $33 a ticket the last year of the old stadium in 1995 to close to $180 currently.
John-Baptiste said the new stadium will provide the opportunity to offer “standing room” areas - among other options - and that the club will work on pricing “to accommodate all our fans.”
PSL pricing elsewhere
The NFL said back in 1996 that the emerging concept of PSLs was a way to recoup part of the league’s investment in the stadium as it was involved in the process of returning football to Cleveland.
PSLs had been first used in Charlotte as a way to recover construction costs for the Carolina Panthers’ stadium that opened in 1996. They’ve since become a routine way for NFL teams to raise money in building new stadiums.
PSLs were used for each of the four new NFL stadiums that opened over the past decade - in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. And in the next two stadiums slated to open, PSLs break down this way, according to club officials:
Buffalo, opening 2026: About 45,000 of the 60,000 seats are earmarked for PSLs, ranging in price from $750 to $50,000. An unofficial seating map circulating on the internet shows upper deck mid-field PSLs priced at $2,500, with those at mid-field in the lower deck at $15,000. Total cost for the stadium in suburban Orchard Park is $2.2 billion - $1.35 billion from the team, $600 million from the state and $250 million from the county.
Tennessee, opening 2027: PSLs range from $750 to $75,000, with the team reporting 72% sold. The high-end at $75,000 is for an “ultra-premium, all-inclusive food and beverage, luxury club experience.” The club said 40% of the “seat memberships” would be below $3,500. Estimated cost of the Nashville stadium is $2.2 billion - $940 million from the team, $760 million from the city and $500 million from the state.
The one current exception does not involve a new stadium, but rather the massive $1.4 billion Jacksonville renovation underway and due to be completed in 2028. The Jaguars are kicking in $625 million, with the city covering the rest.
“As for PSLs, this is not part of the math here in Jacksonville. Never was,” spokesperson John Dever said by email.
The Tennessee Titans, however, offer a middle ground of sorts - even with their PSLs. They claim to be the “first NFL team to offer existing season ticket members a credit towards their PSL in a new building.”
The Browns were on hiatus in 1996 when the PSL plan was announced here. And there weren’t PSLs in the original lakefront stadium before then. But season ticket holders did get a break when they committed to the new Browns stadium that opened 26 years ago.
Stay tuned on whether that will be part of the Browns’ plan for Brook Park, where the team is aiming to begin play in 2029.
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