Georgia offers a five-game mini plan due to visiting team ticket returns. Three of those games are against conference opponents South Carolina, Kentucky and Missouri.
You’d think only one conference visitor buying out its allotment in full might be some indication that things aren’t completely rosy, but that’s why you’re not an SEC athletic director. Ignoring dark clouds is part of what they pay those guys the big bucks for.
Get The Picture 
While I am glad we charge these teams the same price on the return trip as what they charged us, I also think it makes for the best atmosphere to have as full of a house as possible.
At what point do these idiots in charge MAYBE reconsider not charging people an arm and a leg for each and every game simply because a few dozen tickets sell for that price on SH? I know that paying a mediocre coach $4-5 million a year is expensive and the $’s gotta come from somewhere. But as the senator says here, all these guys wanna piss on us and tell us it’s raining.
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Correct. The reciprocal pricing is the main reason this happens. My preference is for Georgia fans to get those seats because the visitors don’t travel like us. This is a function of us being a Premier opponent for any team while the reverse isn’t always true.
It also seems like a bargaining chip we could use with other teams in the conference. If they’re going to nail Georgia fans on away tickets then I think we should be able to hold those schools to minimum ticket purchase numbers in our stadium.
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600 section in the sun in September? Wonder if they’ll let me bring in my plastic kiddie pool.
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2 of those games are in October and 1 is in November and I’m sure at least one will be a night game. The kickoff time isn’t the problem. Maybe one day the ADs and brain trusts that run college football will realize people aren’t going to pay high prices for bad seats in games they can watch on television.
The only reason Georgia added the 600 level was because they got in a pissing contest over stadium size with other SEC schools. I’m thinking it isn’t going to be terribly long before the whole 600 level is covered with a big tarp with a “G” on it.
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It was built to reduce the advantage the visiting fans had in the west end zone. My tickets are on that end, and when 8,000 people were behind their team, that end of the stadium wasn’t friendly to our guys.
Without it, there’s no way they could have done the west end zone project as it stands now. Recruits and the locker room right in the middle of the visitors’ sections.
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And yet, Kirby somehow managed to sign the #1 ranked class without the west end zone project. Opposing fans could have been put in the Northeast corner of the 300 level where the student seats are and been far enough away to take away their effect with more student seating in the Northwest lower corner and the West end zone project could have gone forward. BM was caught up in getting capacity over 90,000, that drove the project. I remember talk at the time about extending the 200 and 300 levels around the West end zone to put capacity over 100,000 with the bridge going under the stadium addition and Sanford becoming a true bowl. Thankfully, someone with a little bit of sense nixed that idea.
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Naw dawg they did it for the skyboxes.
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To see SC not selling it’s allotment to go to see #3 team in country with all their support in general and alums in Atlanta area, etc. is certainly a canary in the coal mine to me.
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That is what I was thinking as well. It may also just be a realization that Boom hasn’t come even close to being what they expected, not that they have much better options. I can understand Mizzou a little, not much tradition of being an SEC program there and there is a distance issue as well. But KY and SC have no excuse.
It is also fair to note attendance is an issue for most every program, even at their home games. UGA isn’t getting hit with this as badly as others but it is coming. Planners need to be at their drawing boards figuring out how to remodel all that excess space that will no longer be occupied, this is going to come very quickly as older fans fade away. It is a generational thing along with the improved circumstances of watching at home. It doesn’t help with ADs like McDoofus and presidents like Adams throwing gas on the fire making it less fan friendly in so many ways; but it is happening all over the country and seems inevitable for it to come to Sanford. Lot of deals will be offered, I just don’t think it will change anything except for some delay.
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When I watch pretty much any Georgia game, I can see space in the upper corners of the stadium. Granted, those aren’t great seats, but they ARE empty seats. Doesn’t really matter who the opponent is.
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I get the home field advantage of watching games at your residence/friends/local establishment…when visiting fans don’t want to travel to Sanford Stadium to see their team DAWGRADED..speaks to what the oppositions expectations of UGA’s football team this go round…not to mention their own team
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https://media1.tenor.com/images/8aa928fcb063f01cbc0ec3274a0599f5/tenor.gif?itemid=3409084
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High prices, crappy seats, crappier rest rooms, etc. are all a factor, but if I am ADGM or CKS I an saying it is that no one wants to pay that, travel, and then watch their team get smoked. I hope.
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This is another reason that had me looking sideways at that stat about “highest secondary market ticket average”. I’m assuming they are basing that on tickets FOR sale, not tickets sold. Some folks likely throw their tickets on there with huge markups that never sell. I noticed stubhub even has some skyboxes on there for like 2.5k (for ND).
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The 600 level shat on the beautiful symmetry of our stadium. Wish we could have added just the suites and chopped up the visitor allotment in the 300 level.
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Amen, brother.
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Is it too late to tear down the 600 level?
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I can understand the reciprocal pricing but when the opposing side returns tickets why can’t the AA then reduce the price back to what our own fans and donors are typically paying? Before the 5-game mini-package I got an email for the single game tix to USCe – for $125 each. Just drop those back to the normal $75 when selling back to our own folks
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I believe I read the conference does not allow that. Otherwise schools could price the visiting tickets at $2,500 and then drop them to $50 when they are returned.
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I think it has gone unmentioned that availability and cost of hotel rooms is a huge factor. If one wants a decent hotel on a game weekend, it is ~$500/night now with a mandated 2 night stay. That’s enough to make a visiting team’s fan base stay home.
If UGA were in Atlanta, could likely draw more visitors because you can get a hotel. Athens? Not easy.
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Win for me. Once again I donate $0 and still attend as many games as I want. Plus I’ll have a birds eye view and plenty of opposing fans to heckle as they head for the exits in the 4th qtr.
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