As Jets and Giants falter, MetLife Stadium has become a home game for visiting teams

The Giants and Jets have not given their fans much to root for in recent years, and the feel inside MetLife Stadium has reflected that.

With both teams out of contention, MetLife often feels more like a home game for the visiting team.

Frustrated season-ticket holders have a tough choice: Go to the game to watch a bad team or try to sell their tickets on the secondary market — sometimes for a fraction of what they paid — to opposing fans who make MetLife a second home.

“Everybody just seems to be selling their tickets, and it drives me nuts,” said lifelong Jets season-ticket holder Tom Wilson, 45, of Massapequa Park. “I understand it to a certain point . . . I get frustrated all the time. But at the same time, who's really buying the tickets? I already spent the money on them, I'd rather go and support my team.

“Especially if I know if I'm going to go online and sell them, who's probably going to buy them?”

He added: “I feel like every home game you go to is an away game.”

It’s a sentiment fans of both teams can bond over.

“I wish those Giant fans wouldn't sell their tickets because it's not good for the home team,” said Giants fan Francis Brady, 65, of Centereach before last Sunday’s home game against Green Bay. “We need to cheer them on, not have the Packer fans cheer [their team] on.”

Entering Week 12, both the Giants (2-9) and Jets (2-8) sit in last place of their divisions. The Jets’ playoff drought is about to reach 15 seasons, which would stand alone as the longest in North American pro sports. The Giants are about to miss the playoffs for the eighth time in the last nine seasons.

No home-field advantage

The energy inside MetLife is a trend not only the fans notice. Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart was asked about the overwhelming presence of 49ers fans after an announced crowd of 83,258 — the most of any game at MetLife this season — watched San Francisco’s 34-24 win over the Giants on Nov. 2.

“That was interesting,” Dart said. “I've never played at a home game where I felt like it was kind of lopsided in that department. But they have a good fan base and they traveled well.”

The Giants' offense used silent counts to counter the crowd noise during the second halves of the San Francisco and Green Bay games, the latter with an announced 82,438 in attendance — including many sporting Cheesehead hats — for the third-largest MetLife crowd this season.

"You don't anticipate having to do that at home, but that's the reality," Giants offensive tackle Andrew Thomas said about using silent counts. "That's partly because of how we've played. We just embrace it. We've made the silent count a strength of ours, getting timing on the rushers, and it helps us out. We just embrace it."

The second-largest MetLife crowd (83,253) attended the Week 1 Jets-Steelers game, and gold "Terrible Towels" were scattered throughout the stadium.

The get-in price on StubHub (including fees) is less than $70 for each of the remaining six MetLife games — three for each team. Fans could take a post-Thanksgiving detour to the Jets-Falcons game on Nov. 30 for just $40 per ticket. They could become even cheaper once game day comes around.

So why is this happening? It’s not rocket science.

“Because they have a losing record,” Brady said of the Giants. “They're not winning games. And how many games did they blow in the fourth quarter? That doesn't help us. So they could have won four or five games, those games, there wouldn't be that many Packer fans here today. That I know from past experiences.

“But they still find their way in here.”

Reselling tickets

Wilson said his first memory of opposing fans filling Giants Stadium happened on Dec. 14, 2003 — a snowy game between the 5-8 Jets and the 5-8 Steelers (the Jets won, 6-0). Despite an announced attendance of 77,900, the stadium was noticeably empty and Wilson estimated that 9,000 of every 10,000 fans were Steelers fans.

Wilson said the problem with opposing fans taking over has intensified during the past seven to 10 years  and now is as bad as it has been. That includes a dynamic shift within his territory, Section 210. He has friends in the section who will come to the first four games of the season, but — once the team is out of it — that would be all.

“And it's always the opposing teams’ fans [in their seats], and I bust [his friends' chops] every year about it,” Wilson said. “I'm like, ‘Can you stop? If you're going to sell your tickets, at least try to sell them to some friends that are Jets fans.’ ”

Like Wilson with the Jets, longtime Giants season-ticket holder Margie Mosher, 59, of Rockville Centre tries to go to every game. She never would take the risk of selling the tickets to opposing fans, though some could be part of the party.

“Not a chance,” she said. “We try to come to every game. We have four kids. They fight over coming to the games as well since we have the four tickets. We like to bring our other fans with us, Green Bay and any of the other Philadelphia people that come into town. So we like to share the wealth.”

The visiting fan presence is far from a new narrative, too.

Andrew Budris, 51, of Moriches had Jets season tickets in Section 104 from 2010-17. In the early years of having the tickets, which were $125 apiece, he would be able to sell them at face value to other Jets fans. When the team was not playing as well, he could get only $60 or $70 per ticket. For certain prime-time games, the secondary market would list tickets like his for as little as $15. When it got that low, he would donate them to United Way and make more from the tax write-off.

“If I had the kind of disposable income where it was really no problem at all, then I would probably be just giving the tickets away to people that I knew were Jet fans,” Budris said. “But that wasn't really how I was conceiving the economics of it. I always needed to make some of that money back to make it worth it.

“And once that didn't work, I just had to get out of it entirely.”

Packers fan Peter Kuemmel, 70, of Sound Beach originally is from Wisconsin. As someone who has lived in the area since 1983, he always relishes the opportunity to watch his team play the Giants in person.

Last Sunday, he went to the Giants-Packers game as one of 13 family members from three generations — each from Long Island and each rooting for Green Bay.

“I stuck as a Packer fan,” Kuemmel said. “They were terrible for a lot of years. I'm here in New York, I'm still a Packers fan, so I think people should stick with their team. But it's not — it’s hard to blame people who sell tickets. We're glad they did.”

The market

Robert Boland, a professor who teaches both sports law and hospitality law at Seton Hall Law School, said the New York market makes everything more complicated, including the travel.

“If you're a Long Island Jet fan or a New Jersey fan who has an hour commute, the idea of putting six hours into a football game that isn't going to be anything but the experience of the tailgate, particularly as the weather turns a little bit, is more difficult,” he said. “The opportunity now with secondary-ticket markets, even run by the league, it allows you to sell your tickets, take some value out of it, and opposing fans can come and enjoy the game with their family and enjoy the city or enjoy the region.”

Fan bases known to travel well — such as Green Bay, San Francisco and Pittsburgh, among others — are part of the reason why MetLife has hosted many visiting fans. But Boland also mentioned that New York is unique because of its ties to other parts of America. Fans from all other parts of the country live in New York, and places such as Philadelphia and New England provide a short — and cheaper — trip for fans to see their teams in person.

But do not think that a packed stadium — even one with plenty of visiting fans — is a problem for the NFL.

“The NFL loves it,” Boland said. “And to some degree, the stadium sort of likes it because it's a chance to get fans in who aren't regular fans, who will consume, as opposed to empty seats or people with bags over their heads who are angry.”

Newsday's Tom Rock contributed to this story.