INTERVIEW - Pitching seat rights to a sports team near you

By Ben Klayman

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Lou Weisbach's young company is offering a way for sports team owners to raise debt-free capital by selling equity in the seats under their fans' backsides.

The man who brought you the first ads in baseball dugouts is back with another idea catching on with colleges and possibly a professional team near you: the right to buy tickets, also known as "equity seat rights."

Already this year, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Kansas have adopted Stadium Capital Financing Group's idea to fund stadium renovations and other programs through the sale of seat rights.

"The environment is perfect right now on the pro side because there's so many teams in the NHL, in the NBA and other professional sports as well that are having financial difficulty," Weisbach said from his downtown Chicago office.

"There's no doubt because of what's happened economically in this country and in the world the appetite for debt-free capital ... has made people much more open minded," he added.

Under the program, fans buy seats at a premium, paying for them over a period of time, Weisbach said. They then own those rights, free of future price increases, and can even sell them.

Unlike the much-hated "personal seat licenses" used by several National Football League teams that require fans to pay for the right to buy tickets, equity seat rights are voluntary. Their popularity is growing in a weak economy where people are more resistant to the use of public money for sports stadiums

But they don't come cheap.