Guy Lynch had a simple question.
That didn’t sit right with him.
“If you’re physically staying and spending money in a hotel in New Jersey, you’re flying
into a New Jersey airport, you should get discounted travel fare to attend the match,”
Lynch said.
“If you’re flying into New York, if you’re traveling from New York, completely get it, understood. But if you’re physically spending money in the city that you’re going to also attend the game at, you shouldn’t be treated the same as everybody else.”
His traveling companion, Robert Johnson Mitchell — originally from Wiltshire, England,
now living in Miami — put the broader problem more bluntly. And with a snark that
people in New Jersey should appreciate before getting angry.
“The whole problem with New Jersey is it’s in New Jersey,” Mitchell said. “Nobody
realizes that around the world. They think this is New York.”
***
This isn’t new math. Anyone who remembers when the Super Bowl (in 2014) and the
Final Four (in 1996) were played at the Meadowlands, knows the numbers.
Whenever New Jersey hosts big sporting events, the vast majority of the hundreds of
thousands of visitors descending on the region are sleeping, eating and spending in
New York.
New Jersey gets the infrastructure costs. New York gets the economic boom.
The $98 transit fee — which covers a round trip from Secaucus Junction — was the
most common complaint among fans interviewed before, during and after Saturday’s
match.
Lee Todd, who flew in from England and caught a match in Boston before making his
way to Newark, said the price difference between the two venues was noteworthy.
As was this: He had to stand the entire way.
“It was a lot of money to not even get a bloody seat,” Todd said.
Ken Jefferd, who traveled from Melbourne, Australia — a 26-hour journey — with three
friends, found his own workaround. Without even trying.
The group was staying near Hudson Yards. When they asked the concierge how to get
to the stadium, the solution surprised them. The concierge drove them himself.
“He said he lived around here, and it wouldn’t be a problem,” he said.
***
To be fair, not everyone was complaining about the operation itself — just the price tag.
Lisa, a London resident who declined to give her last name, paid the $98 and arrived at
the stadium steaming about the cost. But once she got there, her opinion shifted.
NJ Transit, she said, ran the operation like a machine. No lines. No confusion. Staff
directing fans efficiently at every turn.
“I was baulking at the $98, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “But the organization was at a
level — no lines, no dramas, everybody was super professional, told us where to go.”
Her local friend, Sarah, said it was night and day compared with her recent experience
of getting to Madison Square Garden during the Knicks’ recent NBA title run.
“I went to Madison Square Garden to see the Finals and it was a sh**show getting in,” she said. “This was delightful.”
***
The cost complaints extend well beyond transit.
Patrick Mills, an ex-pat who now lives in Miami, wondered why there weren’t vendors
outside of the perimeter when he was standing in the rain, waiting for the gates to open.
It could bring money — and exposure — to the state, he said. A missed opportunity, he
said.
“I would pay $20 for a rain slicker right now — and it can say New Jersey on it; I don’t
care,” he said.
Of course, how much is branding really worth.
Joe Timms came from Cheltenham, England for the match. He said he paid four figures
for his ticket. He booked an Airbnb.
“In Hoboken, New York?” he said, when asked where he was staying.
That’s New Jersey, he was told.
“There you go,” he said.
He chose Hoboken, he explained, because it was cheaper than Manhattan. He had no
idea he was already in the state hosting the event.
New Jersey got his money. It just didn’t get the credit.
