One of the perks of being a season ticket holder for any professional sports team is that you get first dibs on buying playoff tickets if the team makes the postseason.  Of course, with ticket prices forever rising and the economy getting worse it’s not exactly surprising that some fans are choosing to pass on paying for playoff tickets these days.  If you were a Carolina Panthers fan, for instance, you may have decided to save yourself some cash and just watch the team’s playoff game against the Arizona Cardinals at home.

You were probably pretty happy you did too, after seeing the Cardinals destroy your team 33-13 thanks to Jake Delhomme’s five interceptions.  Not only did you save yourself some dough, but you also kept yourself out of prison by not rushing onto the field to strangle Delhomme.  Of course, then you go to the mail box to get the day’s mail and hey, guess what?  You’ve got a letter from the Carolina Panthers.  They probably want to thank you for supporting them this season! That or they want you to pay them for the right to remain a PSL holder.

From GAME ON!:

Even in this economy, the Panthers are punishing those fans by revoking their Personal Seat Licenses, which cost thousands of dollars to purchase.

The Charlotte Observer’s website reports the team sent out notices last week that fans who didn’t buy playoff tickets would have to pay a “reinstatement fee” to keep their PSLs.  For one fan, the charge was $228 to retain the ticket-buying rights to his seat.

Isn’t that nice?  You pay a few thousand dollars for a PSL, money that was used to help pay for the stadium you’re attending the games in, and just because you didn’t want to give even more money to see your team get embarrassed, now the team is threatening to take your PSL away with no refund.  Bunch of sweethearts, those Panthers.

Though as the guys at GAME ON! point out, back when Bank of America Stadium was built, the names of all the PSL holders were engraved on the bases of six different panther statues found around the stadium.  This is what the team’s owner Jerry Richardson said about the engravings at the time.

“Without the help of the PSL Owner we would not have the stadium, the team or the franchise . . . It is only appropriate to honor them with others who have made extraordinary contributions during our first decade.”

How quickly they forget.