Ohio State football: Big hikes on some tickets likely

Tickets for the best Ohio State football games are likely to become much more expensive.

If recommendations by the university’s Athletic Council are adopted next week by the board of trustees, the cost of the best home games will rise much more than the 13 percent that so-called non-premier tickets are expected to go up.

The Athletic Council will ask that two games for the 2013, ’14, ’15 and ’17 seasons be designated as “premier” games. Those games’ costs will range from $110 to $150. The price of the 2016 premier game, undoubtedly against Michigan, will cost $175. That’s 21/2 times the cost of last year’s $70 ticket.Wisconsin and Penn State are the most likely targets for premium status in 2013.

Although this is Ohio St., it will probably affect Michigan fans in a couple ways. First, anyone directly purchasing tickets to the 2015 UM/OSU game will be paying a lot more. But mostly I see this as a start of a trend that probably come to Michigan once DB sees another opportunity for more revenue. Not that I necessarily think that's a bad thing - when tickets were going on secondary markets for several times face value, that is a lot of money the athletic department could use going to people outside the organization. It'll also help deter ticket brokers buying blocks of tickets to resell if the profits won't be as big, leaving more tickets to actual Michigan fans.

Stuff like this could really hurt season ticket sales though - why pay a ton of money for the crappy games when you're going to be paying almost as much for tickets to good games as the guy buying them on the street?

Summary

Ticket Prices:  Gradual increases coming

Future Schedule:  Announcement "days away"

Baseball Coach: Very deep pool of candidates

Air Force Game:  Planning for special day

Student Incentives:  Coming (no new news)

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120605/SPORTS0201/206050436/1361/Dave-Brandon-anticipates-gradual-increases-in-U-M-football-ticket-prices

EDIT:  Ann Arbor.com Article w a few more things

Would like to schedule more military teams

Entertainment factor examined when scheduling: "networks are fighting over that game" - 2014 App State game

Still working to move UConn game to new venue: "working hard on that"

http://annarbor.com/sports/um-football/michigan-football-planning-special-tribute-for-air-force-game-would-like-to-play-another-service-aca/

USA Today has a breakdown on Athletic Department budgets, showing who's running a surplus and who's not.  Michigan fares well, as do OSU and PSU.  MSU comes in at sixth, with NW is not ranked (due to being private, no doubt).  Iowa comes in higher than I would have guessed, but they are about the only game in town for Iowans.

Article is here: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/story/2012-05-14/ncaa-college-athletics-finances-database/54955804/1#mainstory .

Tables (taken from a Freep article - boo Freep, but credit where credit's due - http://www.freep.com/article/20120515/SPORTS06/205150442/Fiscal-study-Michigan-athletics-are-self-reliant?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Sports ) below.  The Freep article defines "subsidy" as:

Subsidies are split into four streams of allocated revenue: 1) Student fees charged for athletics, 2) direct institutional support (cash allocated to athletic department from the university), 3) direct state or government support, 4) indirect facilities and administrative support (facilities provided by university and not charged to athletic department).

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, MSU and Indiana "subsidize" quite a bit, although I'm not quite sure what all that implies (please share any insights or theories in the comments).

TOP FIVE

BIG TEN

[press release]

Michigan Athletics Announces Ticket Prices for 2012 Football Season

ANN ARBOR – The University of Michigan Athletic Department announced Friday (March 30) the ticket pricing levels for the 2012 football season. The six-game home slate will cost $390 per ticket.

“We appreciate the contribution our fans make to our football program and Michigan Athletics through their commitment every Saturday at the Big House,” said Dave Brandon, the Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics. “The financial support we receive from our fans provides us with critical resources we need to create outstanding academic and athletic experiences for our student-athletes across all of our 29 sports. Our fans passion for Michigan Football is unparalleled.”

Individual game tickets will be priced at $75 per ticket for games against Air Force (Sept. 8), Massachusetts (Sept. 15), Illinois (Oct. 13), Northwestern (Nov. 10) and Iowa (Nov. 17). The Michigan State game on Oct. 20 has been designated as a premium game and individual tickets for that contest will be priced at $95 per seat.

This is the second straight year that Michigan has moderately increased season ticket prices after keeping prices constant for the seven years prior to the 2011 season.

“We benchmarked our ticket prices against our peers and other comparable football venues and we have concluded that these prices will bring us closer to current industry standards,” said Brandon.

The athletic department will also offer ticket packs to accommodate fan interest in partial season ticket packages. Ticket packs and individual game tickets will go on sale in July.

To purchase a wheelchair accessible football season ticket, please email the ticket office at mtickets@umich.edu or call (734) 764-0247 or (866) 296-MTIX (6849).

Season ticket renewal packages will be available in early April.

As Brian wryly commented yesterday about phase two of the Crisler renovations

The renovations will be completed just in time for no one to be able to afford tickets.

There are some details over at the Detroit News on this (Link:) coming Crisler highway robbery at the hands of evil genius Dave Brandon.

The headline says it all:

Michigan fans to pay more for prime seats at Crisler Center

Some of the details:

Season-ticket holders looking to reserve seats in the lower bowl and eastern and western portions of the upper bowl facing center court will have to pay anywhere from $50-$7,500 per seat in what athletic department officials call a "personal seat donation" to secure their spot for the 2012-13 season and earn points for priority seating.

Points are given on a matrix of factors, including alumni status, varsity letter status, donations to the university, and consecutive years of holding season tickets.

However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that heavy hitters in donations will basically snap up all lower bowl and sideline seats not given to students. And they only go back in years of season tickets to 1992-1993 (ironically, the middle of the Fab Five era/debacle.) Held tickets since the 80's or before? That's nice . . . so what.

A bone is thrown to those who can't afford a "personal seat donation:"

There are several sections in Crisler exempt from the new policy: Sections 201, 202, 208 through 220, 226 and 227.

And just where might those sections be, you ask? You don't have to be a genius to figure out that those sections are upper bowl seats behind the baskets.

I don't know what to say. I'll always be a Michigan fan, but pretty much from more and more of a distance.