Season Ticket Sales Slump Again Around South

Season tickets slump for USC, other schools

Athletics officials say sales down everywhere

Written by JOSEPH PERSON
jperson@thestate.com

Posted on 07.18.10

USC’s athletics department’s website features an interactive map showing the available seats for would-be, season ticket-holders this season.

It does not paint a pretty picture.

Less than seven weeks before the Gamecocks’ Sept. 2 opener against Southern Miss, there are entire sections in the upper deck at Williams-Brice Stadium that are nearly vacant — waiting for your mouse click and check to the Gamecock Club to reserve a seat.

Season ticket sales at USC are down 9 percent from last year and have dropped about 20 percent since 2008, when athletics director Eric Hyman introduced the controversial YES program that requires fans to pay a separate fee — in addition to their Gamecock Club donation and cost of the ticket — for the right to buy their seat.

But flagging ticket sales is not a problem unique to the Gamecocks.

Georgia recently lowered its cost for a first-time season ticket buyer to $1,550 — down from $10,651 two years ago and $4,205 in 2009 — after more than 2,000 Bulldog fans chose not to renew their tickets.

Tennessee invited fans into Neyland Stadium last month to check out the more than 1,000 seats available for Year One of the Post-Lane Kiffin Era.

With the recession forcing nearly everyone to examine their budget, some fans — even in the football-mad South — view tickets as a non-essential item. A few observers have questioned whether the SEC’s 2-year-old TV deal, which assures every game is televised, has prompted fans to save money by staying home and watching from their couch.

Experts say the growing trend of seat taxes, or personal seat licenses as they’re sometimes called, also has contributed to the slowdown.

But athletics directors and ticket managers say the decline in sales comes back to one thing: It’s the economy, stupid.

Schools have tried new approaches to try to move tickets.

USC created a new Gamecock Club giving level last year that makes it possible for fans to buy season tickets for $425, a substantial discount from the packages when the school was nearing its decade-long run of selling out its base of 55,000 season tickets.

The school also has increased its advertising across the state and in Charlotte, while starting a partnership with the Greenville Drive, the minor league baseball team that plays in a city that USC officials view as an untapped market.

The blog on the Gamecocks’ website includes a weekly feature showing fans the best seats still available at Williams-Brice. And USC is preparing to roll out its mini-packs that allow fans to buy tickets in sets as small as two games.

Though USC’s season ticket base has dipped significantly, the YES program has had the desired effect of moving out longtime ticket-holders who were low-level donors from the premium seats and replacing them with fans willing to shell out the extra bucks for a seat in the lower deck between the 40-yard lines.

The Gamecock Club added 500 new members this spring. And despite selling fewer tickets, net revenues are up — thanks to the seat fees.

“The less-expensive seats are the ones that are available,” USC marketing director Eric Nichols said. “The more expensive seats are pretty much all gobbled up.”

A few schools, including Georgia Tech, have outsourced their ticket sales to independent firms, which use an aggressive phone campaign to reach fans.

Bernie Mullin, who heads the Aspire Group that handles ticket sales for Georgia Tech football and men’s basketball, said his firm calls alumni, fans who have given up their tickets and others who have bought single-game tickets to see the Yellow Jackets.

Mullin said his agency helped bring in $1.2 million in new revenue in its first year working with Georgia Tech, and is close to finalizing agreements with two more big schools.

Mullin said many schools do not have the resources to do aggressive “outbound sales.” But USC’s Nichols said there is a drawback to outsourcing sales.

“You lose a little control and knowledge of your product when you do something like that,” he said. “But it works for some.”

And while schools can try different marketing and sales techniques, their biggest hope is for an economic recovery or a big year from their team. Or both.

Like any business, Mullin believes a quality product helps.

“Renewals have been under stress and pressure in certain places, particularly those places where the on-field performance … has not been what the fans expected,” Mullin said. “Obviously, at Georgia Tech, it’s gone extremely well.”

But even defending ACC champion Georgia Tech’s numbers are off slightly this year. The Yellow Jackets have sold about 900 fewer season tickets than they had at this point last year. Some of the drop-off can be attributed to the absence of Clemson and Georgia from the home schedule.

Nichols believes this is just a tough time to sell tickets for nearly everyone. Although USC ended last season with a dismal performance in a loss to Connecticut in the Papajohns.com Bowl, the Gamecocks return 15 starters and are ranked in the top 25 in most preseason polls.

“In my opinion, it’s the economy,” Nichols said. “Because there are great teams — and we have high expectations here — there are teams across the country that have expectations of big years that are just struggling to sell seats.”