Hollis unveils new season ticket, donation plan for Spartan Stadium
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In an effort to maintain consistent success and keep MSU football on par with the top programs in the country, Athletics Director Mark Hollis announced a new plan for ticket prices and donations for seating in Spartan Stadium on Thursday.
The plan, which Hollis also introduced to the MSU Board of Trustees on Thursday afternoon, will keep season ticket prices at $308. However, mandatory donations will increase beginning for the 2012 season, ranging between $25-600 based on seat location. Although Hollis said the department tried to be compassionate when asking for more money, he also hopes season ticket holders understand more funds are needed to meet the increased expectations alumni and fans put on the Spartan football program.
“As we look at the past, we say we’ve had four tremendous years,” Hollis said. “I think as an AD, any time you have something positive happen, it comes at a cost. And that cost is to continue to provide top-quality facilities, be able to enhance the fan experience through things as big as video boards and as small as restrooms, and everything in between needs to be addressed at Spartan Stadium.
“It takes resources to apply that.”
The one-time season donations will go to the Spartan Fund, which is in place to assist in paying for coaches’ salaries, scholarships and everything else that comes along with supporting 25 varsity sports and about 750 student-athletes. While the university collects money from profits such as parking and concessions, Hollis said the athletics department does not take money from the school’s general fund.
Tim Day, director of annual giving for the Spartan Fund, said MSU has not adjusted ticket prices at Spartan Stadium since 2008. And in the new restructuring, he said the only increase on actual season ticket prices comes from seats in the endzone previously sold for $231 that will jump to the stadium-wide $308.
The only change comes in the form of donations, which see an increase from $500 to $600 for premium seating. Looking on a conference and national scale, Day said the numbers are comparable across the board.
“Season ticket costs per game are fifth or sixth in the Big Ten right now, and when you look at the premium seating areas, we’re fifth or sixth in those areas,” Day said. “We expanded our view of it. If you want to be a top-10 program, you expand and look nationally at top-10 programs. Although the premium seating areas are up at the top kind of tier with the Big Ten, they are substantially less than down south when you look at premium seating areas, and the donations that are required to that.”
Day added that student season tickets, which cost $136 last season, will increase $4 per game, and single-game student tickets will increase modestly. Also, public single-game tickets will be $50 for the Eastern Michigan and Northwestern games and $80 for the remaining five home games, Day said.
Assistant Athletics Director of Ticket Operations Wendy Brown said the donation increase will ask 41 percent of season ticket holders to pay $100 more annually, 25 percent to pay $102 more, nine percent to pay $50 more and seven percent to pay $25 more. Overall, Hollis said he expects the change to increase annual revenue by $1.5 million to $3.5 million.
“It’s more than buying a ticket now,” Hollis said, citing 2011-12 National Champion Alabama and other traditional powers as schools that follow similar models. “That’s important to our culture, that we have people that are buying into the program.”
Brown said an e-mail will go out to season ticket holders Thursday night detailing the difference in price between last year and the upcoming season with two separate statements for ticket prices and for the donation. If the ticket holder chooses to not donate, seats are available in the east upper deck of Spartan Stadium.
“If they want to change the location of their football season tickets, they’ll need to renew the ticket by the deadline of May 1,” Brown said. “Then they’ll be given instructions on how they can change their seats, and that’s an online process.”
Hollis said he understands if some fans are unhappy with paying more. However, after defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi nearly was lured away from MSU for more money and Hollis heard from alumni and fans how important it was to keep him and other coaches in East Lansing, he said he expects most Spartan supporters to be on board.
“I think coaches have done their part, and I think the administrators have done their part,” Hollis said. “Now we’re asking fans to help out a little bit more and see where this goes.”
Commentary
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Ben
(01/26/12 5:30pm)Report
The increase is worth it and fair.
Now what he needs to do is require students to attend the games. He should do something similar to the Izzone (but not as strict).
Alum
(01/26/12 9:05pm)Report
In the good old days if you wanted the student section to be involved, there was a “card section”. Those were great fun, especially for incoming students!
ALUM
(01/26/12 10:35pm)Report
Go Green! We all know at what level our team is competing. They are elite, it’s time for our fans to step up and be elite. GREAT call by Hollis. If the students are so lame not to show up for every game, sell the tickets.
FishersSpartan
(01/27/12 5:44am)Report
Good decision! To bad we can’t incentivize going to games by making attending an MSU game until the final five minutes ten points of extra credit in any class. It is too bad that so many young Spartan’s simply don’t give a care and/or enjoy tailgating then watching the game with friends at home.
Spartan’s we need you to support your team 100% look like the late nineties Izzone did for the hoops squad.
NOTE: Ask a football player if the student section matters, they will tell you YES!
FishersSpartan
(01/27/12 8:49am)Report
How about this. All Student Fans get special game beads at the end of each game and the beads are passed out by the players…Spartan Spirit Beads? Then we attach the Extra Credit bonus in some way shape or form. We could get the beads showing year, Spartan helmet, and opponent. To me that would be a good means to get buy in. Plus the players would get great relics to show to their kids/grandkids.
NOTE: Those beads could be produced at Peckham so we’d be giving back in different ways.
Chris
(01/27/12 9:28am)Report
You’ll want season tickets this year. The tickets will be a value compared to the soft schedule they consistently play over at Meatchicken. H3LL, We have BOISE STATE ON FRIDAY! Tickets are worth the price, hands down.
Mike
(01/27/12 9:42am)Report
Maybe it’s just me, but this seems like a bridge too far. $80 for a single game ticket?
This whole business of forced “donations” to the Spartan Fund is horse $#!& and I’ve ALWAYS thought that. If AD Hollis want to raise TICKET PRICES, then he should raise TICKET PRICES. This is a cowardly way to increase ticket prices through the back door.
If people support the ticket price increase (which is what it really is, regardless of how they want to categorize the ticket price increase as something else), they’ll support it just as much when it’s printed on the fact of the ticket as they will when it’s a “donation”. The ONLY reason that the increase is being implemented in this manner is because it somehow makes it more palatable to label the double digit percentage price increase as some charitable hogwash.
I’m a Spartan through and through with 2 MSU degrees and a local homeowner blocks from the stadium but this ticket funding system REEKS of dishonesty. Along with the other garbage policies of the NCAA it’s enough to drive me to disgust.
KJ Green
(01/27/12 2:06pm)Report
While I never want to spend more money for a product, I am not unhappy to pay extra for a premium product. MSU’s football team (other than maybe the 2011 bowl appearance) is clearly a better product today than several years ago. However, should their performance deteriorate, I will be closely evaluating my decision to even buy tickets at all. This new program will only accelerate the dissatisfaction fans will feel if the team does not perform in the future.
Hollis has “raised the bar” as it relates to expectations that ticket holders should have for the team. Even his comments as reflected in the article say this:
“season ticket holders understand more funds are needed to meet the increased expectations alumni and fans put on the Spartan football program,” and
“citing 2011-12 National Champion Alabama and other traditional powers as schools that follow similar models.”
I especially like the last comment — so Hollis is implementing programs similar to “traditional powers” (and national champions). I’m curious as to when Hollis forecasts our national championship to occur as a implementing this.
Mark Hollis must have given this some thought. With that said, however, I’m curious on his thoughts regarding:
1) the pressure he has placed on himself and the football team to ensure that the football team performs and the ramifications on ticket sales (and “contributions”) if the team does not do so,
2) the fact that for some season ticket holders, contributions to MSU is a zero-sum game and that any increased contributions to athletics will reduce their contributions to other units of the university (does he even care about this?)
3) the fact that some season ticket holders are already contributing to the athletic department and this new program will not yield any new revenue at least from them.
Calling this a “donation” is a mixed bag. The nice part about doing so is that it will probably yield at least a small income tax deduction for many ticket-holders. However, I find it funny to have this characterized as “mandatory donations”. We can add this to the list along with jumbo shrimp and airline food.
Stack
(01/27/12 9:10pm)Report
My tickets are going to be going up 30%. That’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially when the team didn’t even win the conference championship. Trumpeting “beat Michigan four-straight times” doesn’t exactly seem like a great justification for a large price increase.