That we have a sellout for a cupcake. I think we’ve sold out a couple of opening games in post-expansion RRS, including Boise State back before they were the official BCS-buster, but not a midseason game against what is now a Group of 5 opponent.
Maybe we’ll need that south deck sooner than I thought…
I think it helps tremendously that there are seats in the upper deck being offered for less than $10 each.
I have helped young employees in our plant purchase tickets last week for this game so that they can take their kids. So far, I have helped purchase 15 tickets, all of which were bought on the upper deck West Side.
Might as well. Selling the ticket for $10 is better than not selling it at all. Then you’ll sell T-shirts and caps and programs and hot dogs and all the rest to the people up there. Plus you may just recruit a future season ticket holder. Or a future wide receiver.
I have been preaching that about those upper seats and kids for some time. It makes sense. Put butts in those seats. Creat Hog fans and perhaps even players. It is so positive. Besides it looks so much better. The $10 is not the important thing, still 5,000 (I have no idea how many - not the point) times 10 is still $50,000 they would not have had plaus, as mentioned, the concessions. It all adds up, and makes just a lot of sense.
It’s big for the future of Razorback seats also. When I was young and would get to go to games we would be in whatever the cheapest seats are. I was just a so-so fan as a child until I got to go to a few games. Then I was hooked. And now I own much more expensive seats that I don’t plan on getting rid of anytime soon.
How many of those buying the reduced price seats will have devoted ticket holders in the future. My guess is a good percentage.
I, personally, support filling the stadium whatever the cost (I’ve seen them allow people in for free at basketball games when there is inclement weather and people can’t get there). On the other side of things (the reason they haven’t done this much in the past) is the fact that a season ticket holder then says “I paid a donation plus full ticket price for my seat. I don’t think I’ll do that again this year. I’ll just wait for the $10 tickets” - I also understand that those same season ticket holders also get Alabama, LSU, Florida, Ole Miss - that probably won’t sell for less than face value, but the potential alienation of season ticket holders is the down-side.
I think the new dynamic ticket pricing that is accompanying Arkansas’ new program for the secondary ticket market (i.e. Razorback Ticket Exchange) opens the door for more of these discounts on non-conference foes to fill the stadium. It will also raise ticket prices above face value (for non-season ticket holders) on marquee matchups.
Arkansas is still doing a good job, in my opinion, of creating incentives to buy season tickets. For instance, I don’t think you could get a ticket outside the visitor section to the Alabama game this year unless you were a season ticket holder. And Chris Freet has done a good job with the flexibility he’s been given to sell tickets. The $41 flash sale the other day is an example, as is the $10 upper-level seats for these nonconference games.
As a long time donor & season ticket holder, I can say it doesn’t bother me one bit that some tickets can be bought for $10 for a game like this. One reason it doesn’t bother me is that I’m not interested in sitting in those $10 seats. Another is that I get tickets for the big games that aren’t priced so low. Another is that I contribute & buy tickets more out of love for the program than merely as a consumer of football entertainment. As a contributor, I too want to see a full stadium.
I’ve long advocated a multi-tiered pricing structure. The easiest games to justify that are the cupcake games. Most other schools do this. We can, too. I’d even carry it a bit further than we do. I’d charge more for the big SEC games than for the lesser games. It wouldn’t have to be much different, but it’d be easy to add $10 or more to the Bama & Florida games & take $10 off the La Tech game.
It’s not difficult to figure out where prices need to be cut. Look at what isn’t full. Lower deck is almost always full, except if the visitors don’t use their full allotment (and sometimes even if they don’t) or sometimes the student section. Upper deck? Another issue. Again, sometimes it’s the returned visitors seats which aren’t full; I suspect strongly that’s what was being discounted this week to fill up the TSU game. But the west UD corners often don’t fill either.
It may not bother you, but it will bother some. My father is a long-time donor and season ticket holder who sits in those seats that you are not interested in (seats that we both agree need to be filled) and it does send a message that his money is not worth as much when the person sitting in his section is paying $10. He loves the program and the Razorbacks and Arkansas. So, there is a possibility of alienating some, that’s just a fact without judgment.
I also think Chris Freet is doing a great job and am very happy and excited to see the Razorbacks get into the secondary market and make use of dynamic ticket pricing - it has it’s pros and cons, that’s all I’m saying.
I am curious how we sell all of the Alabama tickets in season ticket packages and then have Texas State tickets available to sell for $10 unless they are part of the Razorback ticket exchange, which once again is a plus for dynamic pricing filling the stadium with people who will attend as opposed to people who will only attend the Alabama game and not the Texas State game.
I, more than anything else, love to see the stadium filled for the student-athletes which train and study extremely hard and represent Arkansas well. I believe dynamic ticket pricing accomplishes this, but maybe there is a way to make season ticket holders aware of their benefits (receiving Alabama, LSU, etc., for less than market value) so that we do not alienate them.
TSU returned most of its allotment. Bama returned a few, but not nearly as many as other schools (including LSU and Ole Miss). That’s where most of those tickets came from. SEC requires 6,000 set aside for visiting teams. So you can’t sell any of those 6,000 in a season package unless that particular seat gets returned by all 6-7 opponents. But a TSU or LaTech is not going to bring 6,000 fans. That’s one issue of playing an SEC game in WMS – you have to give Georgia or Vandy 6,000 seats there too, in a much smaller stadium. Vandy won’t bring 6K either, and I guess Georgia probably didn’t in '14 as well.
I can understand it if someone paid well over $10 for a seat in the same section where seats are being sold for $10, but that’s not what I understand to be happening. I don’t believe all UD tickets are going for $10, but if they are, your dad only paid $10 for his, too, at least for this game. That shouldn’t hurt season ticket sales. It should help them. Pay only $10 for this game, but pay more than that for SEC games. That makes sense. Unless I’m badly mistaken, this isn’t a situation where the tickets were originally priced high & then were offered at a lower price when some were left unsold. That kind of thing would annoy a fan, but changing to system where some seats cost less than others from the getgo shouldn’t bother anyone.
Some in UD paid $10 for a seat - Season ticket holders in the UD paid $25 + donation (you must be a Foundation member to purchase season ticket). Unfair treatment = dissatisfaction. This is something that is proven in research on dynamic ticket pricing - all I’m saying is that the Athletic Department could do something small in the way of a letter or some other token to inform the season ticket holders in the UD that although they paid more for a Texas State ticket ($25>$10) they are paying less for Alabama ($35<$119) to offset the chance of dissatisfaction.
I love seeing DWRRS full, I love the opportunity here for raising up a generation of new fans with the $10 tickets - I am in support of this idea NEASTARKIE - I (like all of us here) want to see the best for ALL Razorback faithful.
I guess I don’t know enough about the price disparities to comment on the specifics, then. If someone paid $25 for a sesason ticket in the same section of the UD that someone else later got for $10, I admit that could cause some concern. Of course, a ticket in the corner is worth less than one on the 50, but I assume you’re correct that the different prices are in the same section. Another thing I don’t know is if these are part of this re-sale plan. If so, I can see that having an impact. Everyone knows you can get a ticket for less outside the stadium on most game days, but those aren’t sold by the school. Anyway, I shouldn’t comment on something where I don’t know the facts. I can only comment on the abstract concept of tiered pricing.
When the new ticket prices were announced, I noticed that there were varying prices in the upper deck. I saw that some of the lower level seatss in Hog Heaven were more expensive than others in those same sections.
