No more PSLs: Why Charlotte FC changed season-ticket model. ‘We vowed to listen’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- End of PSL sales are effective immediately.
- About 15,000 Charlotte FC PSLs were up for sale for 2026.
- PSL owners get 75% credit over 2027 and 2027–28; 25% in 2028–29.
Charlotte FC fans no longer need to purchase permanent seat licenses in order to obtain season tickets, the club announced Tuesday morning — a radical change to a business model that had been in place since the team’s inaugural season in 2022.
Why the change?
Eric Sudol, chief revenue officer of Tepper Sports and Entertainment, put it simply.
“We vowed to listen,” Sudol said Tuesday. “And we put that right into action.”
The news means many things for a variety of entities. But most important: Now fans who want to purchase season tickets do not need to make a one-time purchase of PSLs, an added expense of hundreds of dollars that proved to be a prohibitive barrier to entry for many prospective season-ticket members. Charlotte FC was the only Major League Soccer franchise that employed such a business model.
The end of PSL sales are effective immediately. PSL owners for the 2026 season — there were approximately 15,000 Charlotte FC PSLs up for sale — will be awarded credits toward future season tickets.
The Queen City club is owned by David Tepper, the billionaire hedge fund manager who also owns the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. Both teams play in Bank of America Stadium in uptown. The Panthers still use and will continue to use the PSL model, Sudol said Tuesday. The NFL franchise introduced such a structure to the league in the 1990s, in fact — and it is now customary across the NFL.
On Tuesday, Sudol told reporters how Tepper Sports and Entertainment came to the conclusion that the removal of PSLs is good for the overall prosperity of Charlotte FC.
It started with a survey the club sent out prior to the 2026 season to see who would be interested in a focus group and provide feedback on their season-ticket membership. That resulted in seven, 90-minute focus groups of approximately 80 people each, Sudol said — and yielded discussions that were “authentic and wildly successful.”
“It validated some of our intuitions and what the data supported and offered additional insights of things that (made us say), ‘We can do that,’” Sudol said. “We all left there saying, ‘The vast majority is within our control.’”
Charlotte FC eliminating PSLs is a ‘long-term investment’
Charlotte FC executives drew several conclusions from their discussions with their season-ticket members.
But a prerequisite to such discussions?
This fan base is loyal, and the Charlotte FC product is good.
After all, Charlotte FC is healthy as a franchise on the long-view. The club remains one of the best-attended teams in all of MLS. In 2022 — buoyed by a magical inaugural match that featured 74,000-plus attendees and inspired one of the most special pregame traditions in all of pro sports — Charlotte FC averaged 35,260 fans per home match, second in the league behind Atlanta, according to Soccer Stadium Digest. In 2023, that increased slightly to 35,544. Through 2024 and 2025, though numbers dropped slightly, they were still above 30,000 on average, good for Top 3 in the league.
Even halfway through the current 2026 season, Charlotte FC ranks fourth in average attendance with 28,043 fans per game. On the one hand, that’s a big drop — particularly when you consider the filled-to-the-brim lower bowl (plus suites) has a capacity of approximately 36,000 and that the team has year-over-year gotten better. On the other hand, the dip could be attributed to all sorts of things: from the club opting not to open the upper bowl for big matches (like when Leo Messi comes to town), to a compressed MLS schedule caused by the World Cup.
Still, Charlotte FC executives including Sudol and TSE CEO Kristi Coleman figured that structural change needed to happen. They decided, too, that now was the perfect time to do it.
Why? For one, the Men’s World Cup in the North America has exploded interest in American soccer — a fact that has been written about relentlessly in the past few months. According to a May report, MLS had averaged 7.9 million live match viewers per week through the first three months of the 2026 season, an increase of 62% year-over-year.
For another, MLS is going through its own transformation. Specifically, the league is switching to an international, “year-round” calendar in 2027-28 that will more closely align with that of the world’s top soccer leagues, one that runs from summer-to-spring instead of spring-to-fall. As a result of that, MLS will embark on a “sprint season” in 2027; the 2027 season, thus, will begin in February and end in May and consist of 14 regular-season games.
“It created this window for us to really reassess our business,” Sudol said.
Sudol said there were five conclusions to come from those focus groups:
- The PSL structure is a barrier to entry that is not “endemic” to the sport. “If it’s inhibiting our ability to grow fandom, we gotta change that,” Sudol said. “And the perception and sentiment around it, among our fans, was not ideal.”
- There was an inadequate price-value gap. In other words, fans did not seem satisfied that they were getting what they paid for. Food and beverage pricing, for one.
- Team could afford to up their benefits packages.
- The club should enhance service and communication.
- Fans were longing to feel part of a community.
Sudol went on to say that the team sent this new plan to season-ticket holders at 9 a.m. Tuesday, and that “the sentiment coming out from our stakeholders is strong,” adding, “I think that’s probably an understatement.”
“This is absolutely a long-term investment in the fans and the people that we care about,” Sudol said. “And that’s why we’re doing it.”
So how will this departure from PSLs work?
PSL prices for Charlotte FC season tickets previously ranged from $450 to $900; the one-time PSL cost was $550, and if you didn’t pay for the season tickets, you’d forfeit your PSL.
Now that the PSL system is gone, that extra cost for prospective season-ticket holders is shed.
But what about those who paid for PSLs?
Sudol explained that each current PSL owner will be given credit toward the 2027 “sprint” season, as well as credit to the 2027-28 season and the 2028-29 season.
Specifically, fans who seek credit will receive 75% of their PSL value over the course of the shortened 2027 season and the 2027-28 full season; the remaining 25% will go toward the 2028-29 season.
How this will impact current season-ticket holders will be enumerated in August, when season-ticket renewals and invoices are sent out for the shortened 2027 season and the 2027-28 season.
Four other notes from Charlotte FC news
- There will be a 6% decrease in overall season-ticket prices for the shortened 2027 season, Sudol said. That doesn’t mean every season-ticket holder will see a decrease in price for their same seats; it merely means that the average season-ticket will cost less than it did in 2026.
- Sudol said that season-ticket holders in the supporters’ section — the rollicking, chanting, beer-throwing group right behind the east goal — will see “a significant benefit coming their way as part of the renewal process.” There is approximately 2,700 seats in the supporters’ section. More details on those benefits will be announced in August.
- There are no plans to open up the upper bowl of Bank of America Stadium for select matches. That decision is based on discussions with season-ticket members, many of whom did not see the value of paying for season tickets when the most desirable games are also the most affordable (given the increased inventory).
- The MLS All-Star Game will take place in Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium on July 29. Sudol said that there are “a few thousand” tickets remaining,” adding that this is a “very positive course” considering the match is still weeks away. Increased advertising will take place closer to the event, Sudol said.
