Citing the struggling national and state economy and the goal of maintaining a conservative budget amidst reductions, the MSU Athletics Department announced Sunday that season football tickets will increase in price for the 2009 season.
It will be the first time since 2005 the price of tickets will rise, after increasing every two years from 1996 to 2005. MSU, Connecticut and Colorado were the only Bowl Championship Series schools not to raise prices since the 2005 season.
Season tickets for the general public will cost $308, tickets for staff and faculty will cost $252 and tickets under the Family Plan, which accounts for almost 30 percent of public season ticket sales, will cost $231. MSU student tickets, which cost $136, will be unaffected. Young Alumni tickets ($175) will also remain the same.
MSU football accounts for about 70 percent of the Athletic Department’s annual revenue.
Last year, the Spartans had the sixth-highest average in the Big Ten of season ticket prices per game at $41 behind Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Iowa and Illinois. Tickets to see a game at Buckeye Stadium cost an average of $63 and will also increase. At Notre Dame, a 2008 season ticket cost an average of $65 with a required donation.
MSU Athletics Director Mark Hollis has said that while ticket prices have remained the same, other department costs have increased.
“The MSU Athletics Department isn’t insulated from the current economic conditions that have impacted many residents in our state, and as a result, we have and will continue to conduct careful examinations of both revenue streams and expenditures,” Hollis said in a statement. “This price increase could generate in the neighborhood of $600,000 in additional ticket revenue, but that doesn’t come anywhere near covering the increased operational costs. We have asked every unit within the Athletics Department to reduce expenditures by 10 percent. This follows a Department-imposed freeze on all non-sports operating budgets for the 2008-09 fiscal year.”
Season ticket prices for other sports including men’s basketball and hockey will not increase for the 2009-10 seasons.
Single-game football tickets will also increase $3 in price from $46 to $49. Tickets for the home game against U-M will remain at $70.
The Spartans are coming off a 9-4 season under second-year head coach Mark Dantonio and a New Year’s Day bowl game loss to Georgia in the Capitol One Bowl. Home games for the 2009 season are against Montana State (Sept. 5), Central Michigan (Sept. 12), U-M (Oct. 3), Northwestern (Oct. 17), Iowa (Oct. 24), Western Michigan (Nov. 7) and Penn State (Nov. 21).
MSU has ranked in the NCAA’s Top 25 in football attendance for the last 53 seasons and were No. 20 last season with an average crowd of 74,858.
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