Information

Toronto Maple Leaf and Raptor Licenses for Sale

Please note that we have now handled many Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) Seat License agreements. After over 100 license transactions and we know the proper way to handle the MLSE Personal Seat Licenses (PSL) transfers. The fact that we have handled more licenses than anyone is a tribute to our way of ensuring both the buyers and the sellers are protected. 

In some cases we were the buyers, some cases we were the sellers, and in other cases we acted as the broker between the buyer and seller. If you need to sell your seat license we do have a waiting list of buyers for many different seat sections. However since we act as a broker we know the marketplace and the fair market value, we will not act for anyone trying to sell the license way over the fair market value. We want both the seller and the buyer do walk away believing that a fair price was achieved for both the buyers and the sellers for the seat license.

Please read the following before considering listing your license for sale as Lange will require the following

• A copy of your Personal Seat License that was issued by MLSE by fax or scanned and emailed to us. It is your responsibility to contact MLSE and arrange to receive a copy of it. Should MLSE not have a copy on record, a formal letter from MLSE is required to confirm your PSL account is in good standing and is able to be transferred.
  
  
• A copy of your most recent season ticket invoice from MLSE. This is required in order to include current ticket in the listing price.
  
  
• A meeting at your place of business or your home to verify that you are authorized to deal with the seat license sale.
  
  
• If the sale is being processed from a company name, two senior managers or owners are required to sign the PSL transfer form
  
  
• A seat license trasfer form from MLSE. The correct phone number and contact at MLSE can be provided to you. You are required to fax or email us a copy of the transfer form to provide further proof of your ownership.
  
  
• To think long and hard before you agree to sell your seat license, once we start the process of the seat license transfer by having you sign the PSL transfer form, which is done once we have a buyer, who has provided us with a deposit cheque, there is no going back on the transfer.  If you wish to "test the water" by seeing if their is interest, DONT post the tickets with our service, If you committed to selling your license, we can assist you.  Should you think you may need to change your mind, please don’t list the license for sale.  We spend a lot of time and energy dealing with the buyers questions and concerns  both by email and by phone and then taking the time if necessary taking the buyer down to the ACC for a tour of the seats, and we cannot do that work for a posting fee of $35.
  
  
• You need to read all the FAQ's before contacting us; you will understand the proper procedure much better by reading the FAQ's.
  
  

Please note these licenses that are in demand:

• Toronto Maple Leaf seat license in Platinum, Gold,  in section 107,108,109 or 120,119,118
• Red license section 110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117
• Greens,and Purples in any section. The lower the row the better.

Please call Eric Lange at 905-362-4386 ext 223 or email at ericl@langeshow.com

Before we accept any offers we require the following

• You have read the FAQ's before contacting us; it will save you a lot of time on the phone with us if you understand the process before you email or call us.
  
  
• You do not offer a low ball offer as it will normally just upset the seller, and will not lead to a sale. If the seller is anxious to sell they will contact us to move their price down on our website. You can certainly email us to indicate that should the price point fall on a certain license to a certain level to contact you at that time.
  
  
• Know that Lange will 100% guarantee that any funds you provide for a seat license is protected, should the seller be unable to complete the transaction.
  
  
• Carefully read the description of the seat licenses, and note that in some cases we are selling Leaf only, some cases Leaf/Raptors club seats, and in some cases Raptor only.  
  

Question Number One:

Why would anyone want to purchase a seat license?

The waiting period for Leaf Season Tickets is approximately 20 years and has over 4,000 names on the list. The entire ACC is now licensed for the right to purchase Leaf season tickets, the only legitemate way to get season tickets without using a ticket broker or using the services of an exchange service like www.eTorontotickets.com is to purchase a seat license. Please note the following; we don’t recommend to anyone to use a bank loan, or line of credit to purchase a seat license as an investment. You should only purchase a seat license because you or your company has too much cash sitting around and you don’t know what else to do with it. You can purchase season tickets through a reliable source such as Lange Ticket Exchange (web site www.eTorontotickets.com ) for about $2700 to $3500 over face value. If you purchase a gold seat license for $65,000, it would take 22 years of paying the extra fees that a reliable source like Lange Ticket Exchange would charge, but if you are sitting on cash, and wish to lock in on a seat location then a seat license would make sense for you.  

Question Number Two:

Is owning a seat license a good or even great investment?

First if you can put a seat license in a company name, it means you get to write off the license as an asset over a 3 to 5 year period, (please consult with your CA to confirm) plus you get to write off the hst on the seat license as a tax thru for immediate write off on the hst portion of the purchase of a seat license. As a business you also get to write off the annual season ticket purchase for entertaining purposes.  So if your company is sitting on cash and looking for a way to write down your company’s tax burden I would consider a seat license as a great investment.

For individuals, if you are sitting on a pile of cash and don’t need to invest in other things, such as your own RSP’s, your mortgage is paid off, your kids education funds are taken care of, then yes it’s a possible reasonable investment. But personally I don’t recommend to anyone that you should purchase a seat license as a personal investment unless you have taken care of the above mentioned items first.

Please note that licenses in the lower bowl have certainly dropped in value over the past 24 months, as companies and individuals needed to sell off the PSL, and us finding it more difficult to sell the lower bowls at prices that had certainly moved upward. We have found however prices for the upper bowl have maintained or come down slightly, but not to the level in percentage that the lower bowls have dropped.

Question Number Three:

How did Lange get so involved in a seat licenses?

A long story, but so I don’t have to repeat it on the phone like I do with every client I will reveal it here. I was getting my season tickets throught a long time friend, who owned 4 gold seats at the Air Canada Centre, and I paid him a $10 over face value for each ticket, and I shared them with 3 other buddies of mine that used them for their business. One day my friend that owned the season tickets came into my office and explained he wished to sell his seat license as he could use the cash for other purposes. He gave me a few days to do some research on the value of the license, and I purchased them at that time for $120,000. I went to my friends and explained that since I just invested $120,000 on those season ticket rights, I needed to charge them $30 per ticket, which meant I received $30 x 4 (the number of tickets per game) = $120 x 45 (the number of home games the leafs play per season including pre-season), which on the surface means I was making $5,400. But since the invoice cost of the season tickets are approx. $10 below face value, I was actually making $40 per ticket x 4 =$160 x 45 = $7,200 on my $120,000 investment. Since the bank was only giving me 2% on my money in the bank, this was a great investment. Please note, I did it thru my business which means I did record the purchase as an asset, I did show the purchase of the season tickets not for entertainment purpose but for a normal business transaction, and I showed the sale of the season tickets as a proper recorded credit on the balance sheet as well. We did not do the above to avoid, or defer taxes; in fact I had to pay corporate taxes on the profit we made, which reduces the return on the investment.

I then had other clients that wanted to purchase season tickets, and we went and purchased other seat licenses, including Platinum’s, other gold seats, Air Canada Clubs, reds, greens, and purples. The company was sitting on some cash and we didn't have another purpose of the money, and we then started the ticket exchange service, Lange Ticket Exchange, which many of you may recognize as www.etorontotickets.com . Then a couple of years later we wanted to purchase a new building for our main business, Lange Transportation and we started to sell our excess seat licenses to raise the capital necessary to purchase an almost 70,000 sq ft building. If you go to www.etorontotickets.com and read the section “about us” you can read the story on how we took a 30 year old building and did a lot of renovations to it including Canada’s first retrofitted “geothermal” building. This means we don’t use fossil fuels to heat or air-condition the building but use Mother Earth and modern technology with heat exchange units to heat and air-condition the entire building. So in the process of purchasing and then selling the seat licenses from MLSE is how we become experts in the selling and buying of seat licenses.

Question Number Four:

Why do you - Lange continue to sell, purchase or broker seat licenses?

When we are asked to assist someone in selling their license, we post them on this web site, we do the posting at a $35 admin fee, however we have a further agreement with the seller that we will receive a fee of at least $2,500 plus hst from the sale of the seat license. So if the license is posted at $50,000 plus hst, we at Lange will be paid at least $2,500 plus hst out of those funds received. So the reason we continue to act on behalf of buyers and sellers is that we do charge for our services.  We also get some situations where a seller needs to sell them immediately due to urgent cash flow requirements and Lange is in a position to purchase outright the seat license if the price is right. 

Please note when you purchase a seat license, MLSE requires that you cannot re-sell them for a one year period. So when Lange purchases a seat license we understand clearly we are forced to hold the seat license for a one year period and cannot flip them for a quick profit.

Question Number Five:

Why do you charge a $35 administration fee for posting?

With numberous requestions from season ticket holders asking us to sell their seat license, Lange wants to be sure the seller is truly interested in selling their license. Lange has found by for a very reasonable $35 admin fee, the sellers will truly consider whether or not to sell. Therefore time in posting the license information isn't waste. In some cases we also discovered the seller was acting on behalf of other family members and may not have had permission to do so. The $35 is to ensure the seller is really a seller.

Question Number Six:

Does Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment charge any fees relating to the seat license transfer?

Yes, in two ways. If the seat license has already been purchased by the season ticket holder, then the legal dept of MLSE will actually do the seat transfer from the original seat holder to the new buyer. Presently the fee from MLSE is $500 plus 13% hst. We recommend the buyer pay the fee, so that if something is done wrong by MLSE legal dept. than the buyer will have better standing from a legal point if you paid for the service.

If the seat license has NOT been paid for by the season ticket holder, then MLSE will require the original seat license will still have to be paid for, remember the example I gave in FAQ number three, when I paid the seat holder $120,000 for his license, in actual fact $80,000 of that went to MLSE to pay for the original seat license, so the original season ticket holder actually took in $40,000 after he paid the $80,000 to MLSE.

All prices I quote for seat licenses, will have assumed the original seat license has been paid. If not, part of the buyer’s money will be made payable to MLSE and part to the original season ticket holder. For those that are fully paid the original license seat holder will get all of the funds.

Question Number Seven:

Does purchasing a seat license during a recessionary period really make sense?

If the seller really needs to sell, then like any opportunity its a great time to purchase a seat license, prices have come down in the lower bowl and certainly are not going up in the upper bowl, and some great opportunities may be there that will not be there at this price level in the next year or two. I make two promises when it comes to value at these price points, the first when the leafs and or raptors have a strong regular season, and the promise of play-off season is coming, prices will go up, the second is should either team go deep into the play-offs the value will continue to go up. By purchasing now, you buying licenses at prices we have not seen in the past 5 to 8 years.

Question Number Eight:

Why would I want to sell my license during a recessionary period?

That is the easiest question to answer; sellers have the following reasons to sell their license during these recessionary times.

a) You need the cash flow that a sale of a license may bring

b) You don’t need to commit further capital for the purchase of season tickets, which is a 45 game commitment

c) You want to free up your staff from having to deal with the 45 games and the management of those tickets

Question Number Nine:

Why are the Air Canada Club seat licenses so much cheaper than other licenses?

Remember the seller sets the prices for the sale of the license, but the answer is simple, in fact I was told this in my grade 9th economics class some 35 years ago and its still true. Supply + demand = Price

So if you have lots of supply and little demand it will equal into a low price, if on the other hand you have limited supply and lots of demand the prices go up very quickly. You will notice I have lots of Air Canada Club seats on our website, but not as much demand because of the fact you are required to pay for leaf season tickets + raptor season tickets + club fees = a large annual commitment for the club seats. So if you and or your company can handle the annual commitment for the tickets, then you don't have to pay a lot for the license, which is great value for the buyer.  But if you only want the best gold or platinum seats or the very best 1st row greens, or purples, in the centre ice area, there is very limited supply of those and lots of demand, and the prices are much higher for those licenses.  

Question Number Ten: 

Why are their so few blues, greens and purples on your site?

Supply + Demand,, Because the upper bowl are much cheaper tickets, most individuals or companies can afford to keep the season tickets, compared to the $200 per ticket for gold's, so very little supply comes into the market, and we have lots of demand for the upper bowl.  

• I wanted thank-you for your excellent service in dealing with the listing, transfer and sale of my Maple Leaf Season Tickets/Licenses. You clearly have a great connection with both real buyers and sellers as demonstrated by your ability to process this transaction quickly and efficiently.  I was very pleased with the process and thought your organization did a great job of meeting all of my objectives.  I would certainly recommend to all interested buyers and/or sellers of Leafs licenses to use your services - I know I certainly will again.

   

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•   I wanted to send a quick note to thank you for the professional and expeditious handling of my Raptor license transfer and sale. Everything happened as you outlined clearly to the purchaser and me, and nothing was left for misinterpretation. I appreciate your service and would recommend it to anyone.

                  Best regards, 

                  Gary Wilson, Master Lift

• Thanks Eric for the package containing the cheques for the final transfer of the Personal Seat License, I am very impressed by your professionalism, it has been a pleasure, best wishes for 2010 and beyond.

                    DM

• I would like to advise that the sale of my 2 blue and 2 green Maple Leaf seats has been successfully completed. When I decide to sell I called your offices and your employees outlined the procedure and my options. I chose to engage Eric Lange as my broker. Eric came to my house in Port Dover and detailed his involvement. I asked why it could not be done over the phone and he said he wanted to be satisfied that his client as indeed a 'real' person before he presented the purchase opportunity to prospective buys. He said that he would be engaging them face to face as well. I was surprised at the details that had to be dealt with throughout this transaction and I thank your people and Eric for making it happen with no aggravation for me.

                    Thank you.

                    DMc

                    Port Dover, ON

As Platinum Seat License holder, it's important to know what exclusive features your entitled to.

1. Access to the Platinum club member private entrance, located at Gate 2B on Bay street. This provides ease when entering and exiting the building.
   
   
2. Access to the very exclusive fine dining at the Platinum restaurant, located at Gate 2B. Reservations can be made up to 2 hours before game time, and have the option of enjoying the Platinum Bar instead of sitting down to a formal dinner. For a limited number of concerts, the platinum restaurant may be open prior to the concert and other events. Be sure to call ahead to see if the Platinum restaurant will be open for that event.
   
   
3. Free Platinum members only Coat Check service is located at the bottom of the stairs near the Gate 2B entrance.
   
   
4. Access to two private food and beverage areas located under the stands by sections 106-105 and 101-122.
   
   
5. Access to Platinum member only private washrooms.
   
   
6. Access to purchase your seats for all concerts and most events at the ACC before the general public sale, even for sold out events.
   
   
7. Ability to sell your unwanted tickets through the Toronto Maple/ Raptor Ticket Exchange program. You can also purchase tickets directly from the Toronto Maple Leaf/ Toronto Raptor Ticket Exchange program, you can purchase up to 4 tickets for each game with your exclusive club membership. Please note that the program DOES NOT guarantee that their are tickets available, or that your tickets will sell.
   
   
8. It is common for Platinum Seat members to receive up to 3 exclusive invitations per year. Exclusive events in the past have included a skating party at either ACC or at the Lions Lakeshore practice rink for you and 3 others, that included food and beverage. These are great way to take young ones out to enjoy the ice and to potentially meet alumni players and maybe a Leaf as well. Last year Brian Burke held a excusive Platinum members only reception at the ROM, with food and beverage and Mr. Burke provided his hindsights, and introduced his management team, a lovely evening out by all accounts. Other events include viewing a Leaf team practice. While no events are guaranteed, MLSE has certainly understood that platinum seat holders are deserving of some special members only events.

You pay good money to be an Air Canada Club Member, it's important to know what exclusive features your entitled to.

1. Access to the exclusive for Air Canada Club Members entrance, located in Gate 2 off Bay Street. This allows for little wait time entering and easy exit after the game as well.
   
   
2. Access to exclusive members only Air Canada Club Restaurant. . Take advantage of watching the entire warm-up, and access your table during the game, allowing you to watch the action from your seats, then go back for desert at your table between periods. Talk business and make your deals before the game over a delicious meal, and then enjoy the game from your seats.
   
   
3. Access Air Canada Lounge areas, located behind sections 117-122 as well as behind sections 105-110, which has private washrooms, food court and private "bistro seating".
   
   
4. Access to purchase your seats for all concerts and events at the ACC before the general public sale, even for sold out events.
   
   
5. Purchase up to 4 additional tickets per month for upcoming Leaf and Raptor games, located in the rail seats in the Air Canada Club restaurant. These seats face the playing surface of the restaurant, and have no food or beverage requirements. These seats have all features of ACC seat. The price per ticket for rail seats in 2009-10 for Leaf's game were $165 per ticket, and Raptor's games were $85 per ticket, we do not have a confirmation on the prices for 2010-11.
   
   
6. Ability to sell your unwanted tickets through the Toronto Maple/ Raptor Ticket Exchange program. You can also purchase tickets directly from the Toronto Maple Leaf/ Toronto Raptor Ticket Exchange program, you can purchase up to 4 tickets for each game with your exclusive club membership. Please note that the program DOES NOT guarantee that their are tickets available, or that your tickets will sell.
   
   
7. It is common for Air Canada Club members to receive  1 or 2 exclusive invitations per year. For example, normally a skating party at either ACC or at the Lions Lakeshore practice rink for you and 3 others, that includes food and beverage. These are great way to take young ones out to enjoy the ice and to potentially meet alumni players and maybe a Leaf as well. Another outing was at the Polson Pier where batting cages, go-carting, driving range were set up and food and beverage were supplied.

Please e-mail Eric Lange at ericl@langeshow.com for any inquiries