So, I ran across some interesting news tonight in my browsing of the message boards.
The Oklahoma State - Georgia game has been designated a "premium" game by the Cowboy athletic department. This means that Oklahoma State did not make any single game tickets available. You have to a be season ticket holder (or student) to get tickets to the Georgia game. Oklahoma State projects to sell around 44,000 season tickets this season. They gave UGA 5,000. The stadium seats 60,000. Apparently, there are going to be 11,000 empty seats for the game Sept 5.
Check out the Oklahoma State board. The OSU people are saying "It'll look like a sellout on TV." That's the best they can come up with apparently.
This kind of burns me up because I heard (though did not verify) that Oklahoma State would not sell season tickets to Georgia residents. It seems to me that they're leaving an awful lot of money on the table. We took 20,000 people to Tempe last year, so I'm sure we would have taken 16,000 to Stillwater if we were given the excess allotment. These tickets are $100.00 face value. Do the math. With 11,000 projected empty seats, if Oklahoma State would only sell HALF (either to UGA or their own fans as single game tickets), they'd gross $550,000.00. That's an awful lot of money that they are almost certainly foregoing, only to severely limit the opposition's numbers and goad your own fans into buying season tickets.
I really do fail to see how that model makes any real sense... I'm sure that the rest of the coaches throughout their athletic department are thrilled that Oklahoma State left a gross payday guaranteed to be over a half a million dollars sitting on the table. I'm sure that the local business in Stillwater are thrilled about the prospect of several thousand people who would have come out, bought beers, food, merchandise, stayed in hotel rooms, you name it, not doing any of that because the Oklahoma State athletic department decided to only sell the Georgia game to season ticket holders. It cuts both ways. It's obviously a rough economy, so why would you try and force your own fans to lay out several hundred dollars a piece for season tickets when they don't want to? And why would you take revenue away from your local businesses?
I'm wondering who benefits from Oklahoma State's ticket policy for this game, and honest to goodness, I cannot come up with one entity. Oklahoma State has pointed to the Georgia game as a chance to show that they are a national program, an emerging powerhouse. More power to them, it's a great opportunity for them to do so. But I have to say, that's very much a bush league approach by their athletic department, and it says anything but "elite", in my view.
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2 comments:
i've always thought a little competition always makes for a better game viewing anyway. its always fun to have a little light-hearted ribbing between differing fans before, during and after the game. Is oklahoma trying to homogonize their grandstands? My vote is to find some georgia fans living in oklahoma and see what you can come up with. Craigs list? there's gotta be something out there. Fuck 'em.
I should clarify that I do have tickets myself... at a $100 premium for a pair it was a nice Three Bills for a pair of seats in the upper deck, corner of the endzone (I don't care about the location, I'm just happy to be in the stadium). I feel bad for the other UGA fans who wanted tickets and couldn't get them, and I also feel bad for the Oklahoma State fans who want tickets to the Georgia game, but don't want to lay out for season tickets. It's going to look bad for Oklahoma State on national TV when the game isn't a sell out, though they've essentially created an arbitrary surplus of tickets, if you want to look at it that way.
I hear that UGA will be playing the Oregon Ducks in 2011 or 2012 in Eugene. If I go to that one, it'll be the 4th Pac Ten stadium I've seen in person, and I only lived on the left coast for one football season!
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