The University of Tennessee has elected to charge its students for football tickets. That, in and of itself, is hardly newsworthy (unless you’re a UT student, of course). But the explanation is.
In a continuing effort to offset a projected athletic budget shortfall of more than $3 million next year, the University of Tennessee will begin this season charging students for football tickets.
The Vol Athletic Department can’t make ends meet? What’s going on in Knoxville?
The increased revenue, which also is to include a $19 jump in non-student season-ticket prices and a 30 percent reduction in discounts for faculty and staff, announced March 31, will go toward stemming a projected $3.15 million shortfall in the athletic department’s operating budget for 2009.
That includes costs such as tuition for student-athlete scholarships and travel for both men’s and women’s athletic teams. It will also help with non-operational costs, mainly projected pay raises for men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl, football coach Phillip Fulmer and their staffs. [Emphasis added.]
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Does UGA charge it’s students now? It is hard to believe that UT is expecting a budget short fall with the largest football stadium in the SEC (plus they just raised FB ticket prices last year), the best women’s BB attendance and this past year they had one of the better if not the best men’s BB attendance. I guess donuts and fritters have gone up just like gas and milk has over the last year.
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According to the link in that article, Georgia students pay $48 for football tickets.
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Student tickets at UGA are $8 a piece for the home games (which would equal $56 for a full 7-game set). There is also a $7 service charge because all student ticket registration is done online. Students pay general admission prices for away games (aka, whatever the other school pegs their prices at). Freshmen in recent years have received “half-season” packages of either 3 or 4 games that would pair a big game like this year’s UT or UA with a few smaller games like Southern or Central Michigan. Freshmen through my freshman year of fall ’05 got the whole home season package, but demand has spiked dramatically, leading to the half-season packages. Not sure where UT got their info from or how outdated it apparently is…
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Eric is correct except that freshman have recieved half-home packages since 2001. Transfer students are also considered to be ‘freshman’ for this purpose unless they come into UGA with 90 completed credit hours.
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For clarification: My freshman class and the class before me I know had most freshmen receive full-season packages. The past two years, however, all freshmen received half-season. As an aside: Why are the student section tickets doled out based on comfortable sitting arrangements when sitting is not what happens in the section?
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Back in ’91, student tickets were $2 a game for home games. You could see the Dogs play for less than it would cost to watch a local high school game.
It is hard to believe the Orange Hillbillies haven’t considered charging students at least $2 a game.
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Also, I think the real cost for the shortfall is due to players’ legal fees and bond chargers… that and just paying their players.
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i work on higher ed budget issues–it’s not surprising to me that ut is in the red: almost *all* colleges and universities with intercollegiate athletic programs operate those programs at deficit–even most of the big boys, like ut.
that’s why damon evans has been so masterful in his management of uga athletics. of course, his predecessor left him in fine shape, too.
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Congrats to Bruce Pearl for his raise. He earned it after Tennessee won the SEC tourna…oh, wait…
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That body paint costs $$, though. 😉
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