I’m guessing all who are season ticket holders have received an email about upgrading current seats or adding seats. I took a look at what is available and was somewhat surprised at the number of seats available. Almost all were in the upper 5 rows or so, but there were a number of 4 seat blocks and about 1,200 seats total.
I think there are folks that are reaching their breaking point. I thought this would happen. The U says they have a 98% renewal rate and bank on that, but I’ve thought for a few years now that they were reaching a tipping point.
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When between the ticket, and mostly the required Crimson Club donation above and beyond the built-in donation to the ticket, I figured paying almost $2,000 for two bleacher spots was the breaking point. The fact I was only getting to half of the games provided the cement to the decision to end the relationship.
I can watch the games on TV and enjoy my smoked meats and BBQ.
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We almost gave ours up this year.
Cost, coupled with the ever increasing difficulty to find parking etc. will likely drive us out soon.
Our thought is do we really want to commit 6-8 hours to go to games in bad weather, hot weather etc, paying far more than we used to for seats that really aren’t all that great since they tore down our old ones?
Maybe in retirement I need to find a job at one of these corporations who can afford college athletics.
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I get it. There will come a time for us as well. In years past I typically would go to a game like the Florida game, but I’m just not that excited to spend a couple more thousand to go to a game in Florida in early September.
I’m sorry but my perspective is not the same as these posts. I’ve attended games since the 1970’s. Approx 1,500 seats available seats out of 51,444 is less than 3%. It tells me that even in turbulent economic times the U has done an excellent job. This isn’t a MWC team anymore. We’re not seeing New Mexico and UTEP on the schedule. There’s a waitlist for the KGRZ end zone seats and I’ve been told that everyone renewed. Plus part of the ticket price is a deductible Crimson Club donation so they’re trying to minimize the impact as much as they can. We’re competing with USC, Oregon and Washington for legit status in a P5 league. Higher caliber expectations require higher caliber expenses.
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Deductable Crimson Club donation? Hardly. With the standard deduction being what it is something like 90% of taxpayers don’t itemize anymore. Claiming that there’s a tax benefit is silly. Maybe for those making mortgage payments on multiple homes, but that’s it.
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My point is that the U at least tried to shift a portion of their price increase to an option that could be deductible. I’m sorry you view it as “silly” because it works for me.
Deductibility nowadays is kind of a red herring. That said, with the changes coming to the tax laws being reverted back since Trump tax was set legislatively to sunset last year and Congress didn’t renew it, maybe it is deductible for lower standard deduction folks as that rolls back to the lower amount.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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How nice for you.
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They didn’t try to shift anything to help their customers, they added mandatory donations so they could put the money where they needed it.
I love the U, but the idea the athletic department is looking out for their customers just rings hollow.
Anyone who has donated money to the CC for a “project” such as the Stadium or Dumke can tell you that. Because they don’t count such donations as satisfying your mandatory donation for tickets. “Hey, thanks for giving us money, but in order to keep your tickets you’ll have to “donate” more, the donation you voluntarily made doesn’t count”.
I’m sure it’s nice if you’ve got that kind of money; but for those of us who don’t, we’re seeing less benefits at more cost. (See the retooled CC donation levels and benefits)
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Whatever tickets are available now will be gone as soon as they go on sale to the general public.
The cost was one factor in my decision making to not renew this season. A larger contributing factor were the late starts. The reality was the 8:00pm or later starts were hard on me physically due to my medical issues. Those starts, linked with post game tailgate cleanup, packing, and negotiating traffic usually got me home at around 2:00 am. By the time I got done decompressing enough to sleep, it was past 3:00 am. It took me several days to getting to feel normal after the late games.
Being at home watching the game gets me to bed around midnight, and I can get my meds taken on schedule. I am a little off (but functional) on Sunday but back to normal by Monday.
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The 2:00 a.m. thing is no lie.
That said, I prefer 8:00 p.m. games to 11:30 a.m.
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When I got home I would have to take all my diabetes meds that I couldn’t take earlier in the evening, then wait to make sure there wasn’t a bad reaction. It didn’t happen often, but when it did I didn’t get to sleep that night.
The day games had fewer disruptions.
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Look at it this way. Two years ago it cost about 10 tanks of gas for a good ticket. Today it only costs a few tanks of gas. What a deal!!
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