On the surface, this doesn’t sound unusual.
Getting the best seats for University of Texas sporting events will be based on a new loyalty points system tied to how much a fan donates or spends on tickets.
“Big deal”, you say. “What’s so new about that?”
How is the Loyalty Points program different from the previous priority system?
Previously, priority was based on your current year’s annual giving and the sport specific program (i.e., season tickets in football, basketball, baseball). Loyalty Points looks at cumulative giving, as well as your current annual contribution.
In other words, you want the perks with your football season tickets? Then you’d best be prepared to pony up in some other sports, too. ‘Cause those perks aren’t insignificant.
How will Loyalty Points be applied to parking, AT&T Red River Showdown tickets, post-season tickets, etc.?
Loyalty Point rank will determine the order in which season ticket members select or are assigned locations for parking, AT&T Red River Showdown tickets, post-season tickets, etc
I’ve got the feeling this is an experiment that will be watched by plenty of other ADs at football oriented schools to see if it encourages the fan base to dig a little deeper into their wallets. These days, it’s all about the loyalty, y’all.
Get The Picture 
Would seem to me that contributions for football tickets far outweigh the other sports, so long time contributors to football shouldn’t be affected much. The ones who might be affected most would be maybe people (rare tho they may be) who are longtime basketball season ticket holders but not football season ticket holders. Now somebody who had been contributing on the football side all along could slide right in and take higher priority for basketball, even if it was their first year buying basketball season tickets. Just don’t see it affecting things in the other direction that much (i.e., longtime football season ticket holders losing priority. Their contributions should hold their place in line).
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For some reason, the phrase “all other things being equal…” comes to mind here. You and your seat neighbor may give the same amount for your football tickets and contribution, but if he buys basketball tickets and you don’t, well, as the Q&A says, etc.
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Ah, yeah that’s true, I guess I was thinking more of people who buy either/or rather than those buy both. I wonder how many people have both for UGA? I dont even know how many bball season tickets we usually sell in a year. I doubt if there’s enough overlap to disrupt things for most UGA football ticket holders of the model were applied here.
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“if” the model were applied here.
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But I think that’s the point here – use the demand for football to leverage demand for other sports.
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Looking at it purely through the prism of UGA athletics, do you think it would work in Athens? I just don’t think it would do much. The people who have the money to have season tickets in multiple sports are likely for the most part already fairly significant donors who aren’t likely to be unseated in priority regardless. Not saying it wouldn’t work for some other programs who have more tradition in both of the major sports. Just seems like in Athens, for basketball especially, we’re a bandwagon fan base as far as actually showing up at the games. On court performance is gonna affect ticket sales way more than a policy like this would.
(Obviously this is all opinion, but I’m curious what your opinion is).
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Oh, I’m not saying it’ll work. To me, there’s going to have to be a certain element of uncertainty introduced into the system that makes contributors think it’s in their best interests to pony up in other sports. Is the AD willing to pander like that? And would it be believable? Beats me.
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As I read it, there is a 5 vs 2 ratio advantage to giving to the school vs purchasing tickets (to any sporting event). While slightly different, doesn’t the Hartman Fund work for us in much the same way? Give enough to that and you can shoot up the list for priority tickets, moving up, etc. Plus, they specifically said you don’t lose your current seat, just the order will change in who can apply to move-up their tickets. And frankly, who the hell wants to go see Texas play anything anyway? 😉
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What’s wrong with creative fundraising?
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First, they have to come up with something worth the loyalty of the lost billionaire/millionaire bucks no longer rolling in automatically. Top horny bull then gets a command court jester (thanks DIF) performance from Patterson in their rarified-air skybox at halftime. Or a sky dive into the stadium without a parachute.
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I’m sure like everything else Patterson has done here lately, this move will get plenty of negative feedback and then will push through. Because, you know, oil money.
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I don’t know how close things are, but there is a tipping point where the fans say “I’ll stay home and watch the game on tv”. College sports are great and people love going to the games, but at some point the money squeeze gets to be too much and people decide they would rather keep their “donation” and ticket money and spend it on some other leisure or recreational activity. I could be wrong, but I don’t think major programs are going to be able to find 90,000 millionaires to make really big donations for the privilege of being able to buy tickets to fill up their stadiums.
I’m sure a millionaire doesn’t mind spending $500, six times a year, per ticket to see his favorite team play, but there really aren’t enough millionaires to make that cost level a viable model if a program wants to fill up it’s stadium. Nationwide, attendance at college football games is down and is continuing to drop. Raising the cost to attend doesn’t seem like the best solution to that problem.
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Hey, nobody ever said the people running college athletics programs were smart. 😉
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Absolutely. Atlas Shrugged, if you will. I stopped going to games about 5 years ago, and since have only been to three UGA games. I thought I’d badly miss it, but the opposite occurred, in which I actually prefer to watch it on TV instead. Several friends mine who live quite close to Athens (Braselton, etc.) have given up their season tickets within the last few years, and instead use Stubhub or uga ticket boards to attend the top 1-2 big home games yearly. Not only are they saving a ton of money, but they get to choose only the very best home games to attend.
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Good luck on the cost of those crappy seats for the Bama game.
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Good luck going through all the ubiquitous hassles attending all those crappy home games yearly, while paying the same price (and needing to put forth the same effort getting to/from) whether the opponent is Bama or Western Carolina. After all, the thought of dynamic pricing is utter kryptonite to AD’s at major programs.
For the last 8-9 UGA games I’ve attended, in which I’ve secured tickets through some type of third party or intermediary (stubhub, uga ticket exchange, friend, etc.), I’ve secured LL seats, between the 20’s, row 15 or higher for each and every one. And the most I’ve paid ever was $150 per a few years back, with $100 being the average.
The whole season tickets/point system thing is a beautiful formula that creates a myopic, habitual rat race among the fans who are led into such a well placed trap. If I had a dollar for every UGA fan that has said, “I really should (or want to0 give up my season tickets, but I have “X” number of points and would hate to lose them”…I could build a handsome home entertainment theater complete with a 4k TV and Paradigm speaker sound stage.
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Besides, it looks like you missed the point about me generally preferring to watch the game on TV anyway. I’ll most likely not have any interest in going to the Bama game even with free tickets in section 131.
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Didn’t miss the point, was just adding to it. The price of shitty seats to the Bama game was $150 each with many priced at $250 on any site. Hell, if I’m able to travel to the game, I’d just as soon invest $400 each for better seats to enjoy, but I’m not and will watch on TV along with you..
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Or you go to Athens without a ticket and wait for kickoff – its amazing how fast prices drop once the game starts. If you don’t mind missing a few minutes at the beginning, you can get in for decent cost.
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My favorite response has always been; “I don’t want to give up my seats because I won’t be able to get them back when we get good again”.
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I’ll bet I can get tickets to the Bama game for less than what the people who have decent seats pay for them from the AA. The most I have ever paid to get in was $120, to one of the big games with Auburn a few years ago. I rarely pay face, even for decent games. For the conference games, I generally pay about $60-80. I’ve never been shut out of a game because tickets weren’t available.
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Where did you get them. Huh? Huh? 🙂 If you told, of course they would disappear fast.
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Well, since there’s no TV money coming in from the Longhorn, Big Ten, or SEC networks all schools are likely going to need their fans to dig deeper in their pockets.
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From what I’ve read, the Big 5 conferences plan on continuing to follow the NFL model, in which rapidly increasing TV revenue will easily trump ticket sales or individual fan expenditures (thus making fans more and more insignificant in the grand scheme of things).
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That plan seems to be moving forward, but I think it will ultimately result in the death of college football as it is now, and that might be a good thing. I don’t find the NFL to be very interesting and I don’t want to see college football go that route. I’m sorry, but half full (or less) stadiums, piped in music, non stop commercials and prima dona players have no appeal for me. If it gets to that point, I’ll start going to Mercer games.
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I get baseball tix and have for years. Now you are required to “donate” to keep my behind home plate seats. It might be nice to get credit in the football area….Right now, that requirement hasn’t affected the amount of my football donation, but if the crappy out of conference schedule continues it will.
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Do you mind me asking how much that required donation is? Just curious how it compares to a football donation.
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Up to now, seats are renewable as long as you keep making the minimum contribution for your section. Is that likely to change? Always wondered what it might be like to sit way up high on the north side where you may only be able to suspect there is a football game down on the field. This may give me a chance to find out when the multiple donors slide in ahead of me.
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I interpreted the article to mean under the new plan you would not lose your existing seats, but you would potentially get worse seats for the special events such as bowl games, season openers like the Chick-fil-A kickoff classic or neutral site games like the red river feud for world’s largest cocktail party. I actually donate to all of the sports, but other than football the amount is nominal. One time I asked the UGA Athletic Department about this and was told that a very, very small percentage of people contribute to more than just football and a virtually nonexistent amount of people contribute to three sports or more, so I don’t see this having much of an impact on us. As the Reverend points out above, it would be interesting to see how this would play out if a large football donor suddenly decided they wanted to attend the NCAA basketball tournament to watch the team play and essentially “bumped” someone else out of their seats.
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I wish there was a way to get bonus points on your athletic priority for significant giving on the academic side. “Endow a scholarship in Chemistry? Boost in your Hartman Fund score”
That seems like a win-win.
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Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Longhorn Foundation, the show where everything’s made up and the loyalty points do matter
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