I shared this over on TSL, so thought I should share it here too....
In years past it was customary for groups of donors to sweep up unsold tickets 1 min before game time in a pre arranged agreement. That is how our sell-out streak has continued when we all knew that tickets were not being sold out, and obviously not all the butts were in the seats.
This season the 2-3 groups of donors that had these previous arrangements said no to the VTTO agreement.
The thing that is funny to me is all of the social exposure that VT is pushing out for people to come and buy the tickets; when in reality they should realize something is wrong when the the "trusty and faithful" donors themselves said no to buying the tickets.
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I have a solution. Stop scheduling cupcakes.
Or lower the ticket prices for cupcake teams....
^ What she said. Basic economics.
Yup. Supply and demand rears its head
Winner.
I know that I definitely want to come to the game against Liberty in a few years, but not at $50+ a seat. Might be able to get season tickets from one of my dad's friends for less though, that's how we went to my only game in Lane (Clemson '06).
Definitely agree. Western Carolina should not be the same as a game against UNC.
This is what LOLUVA does....I recall we have discussed in the past why they had some prices low and then jacked up the price for the VT game at Scott...um...Lane Stadium North.
only reason i'm going (aside from the ability to drink numerous rails and be awesome) is because I got great seats dirt cheap
I'm going because I need to get into Lane and scream at the top of my lungs while I watch our Hokies beat WCU's qb to death with his own linemen. It's literally a need.
Clemson is playing SC State at home this week. 52 point favs. Everyone schedules cupcakes.
And before anyone brings up how the B1G has decided to stop scheduling I-AA teams...
MAC teams are mostly cupcakes too.
Half of the Big Ten qualifies as 1-AA teams at this point. The bottom of that conference is probably not as good as BC or Wake. Or LOLUVA
Very true, but Clemson also plays a very exciting brand of football and has an unbelievable game day experience for fans that doesn't seem as heavily regulated as the Lane experience has become.
I'm confused about something:
Who gives a shit if we have a sellout streak?
The coaches for recruiting purposes
Us TKP'ers for pride purposes
Who down voted this? Selling out games is a matter of pride for schools, fans, players, coaches and anyone associated with Virginia Tech. I don't think you understand why you should down vote things
This. It's a huge recruiting tool to tell a kid that the fans support the team so much that every game has been sold out since 1998. Shane Beamer has been especially vocal about trying to keep the streak alive.
Because we aren't LOLUVa
I was in middle school at the time, but I have heard stories of an "Ice game" in Cassell against maryland, in which many regular ticket holders could not make it due to weather. In lieu of this, Tech gave away those seats to students, which resulted in a gigantic student section. I know that seats are being given away currently to students, does anyone know if these are regular student seats, or if they're giving out others? Because if that's the case, we may actually be pleasantly surprised at the size/volume of the crowd this saturday.
The ticket office often gives away tickets to basketball games over break and for foul weather. There is also the standby seating for any game too. As far as where these seats are located, they are leftover season ticket seats as well as over 3000 tickets WCU returned to us, so upper right side of East Stands.
This reference makes me feel terribly old because I was at that game and it wasn't "that" long ago. VT did win though.
I know seriously. Middle school?
I was at that game. Without a doubt the most fun I had as a Hokie. Place was packed with students, game was close, Greivis Vsquez flicked off the fans and then got booed every time he touched the ball the rest of the game (and the rest of his maryland career vs tech, really), game went into overtime, Tech wins, everyone was going nuts.
I'd pay any amount of money to go and experience it again. It was insane.
Anytime foul weather has threatened since I've been working games, everyone references that game since the majority of them couldn't make it into work other than though that live close by.
Also, f*cking kanagroos!
Well that was 2007 wasn't it? Then I would have been in middle school. I'm 19 now. Also, now that you mention the flicking off the fans, I realize, I actually watched that game on TV. Go figure.
Stop making me feel old!
Don't forget how we made DJ Strawberry feel. That was a classic game. DEE JAY...DEE JAY
Wait, game went into OT? Wasn't the GT game last year the first OT game in Lane Stadium?
*EDIT* Yup, we're talking about basketball. Hard to get my mind off of football on gameday.
They're talking about a basketball game.
Like lburghokie, I agree, the real story here is why the boosters aren't buying them all up so the streak continues. It says something major, but I don't know what, and I'm not going to speculate.
Also note, there are unsold season tickets.
With the paltry home schedule, I wouldn't be surprised if ticket sales become an issue again this year.
No offense to Western Carolina, but why did we give them 4300 seats? According to my research, that's tickets for over half over their student body.
I'm sure the NCAA has some sort of rule regulating how many seats/how much of your stadium you have to allot to the other team.
Re: donors not buying unsold tickets ...
My theory is the simplest explanation - simple economics. I'd wager that the number of unsold tickets has been steadily increasing and it's reach a point where prohibitively expensive for those groups of donors to scoop them up right before the game.
I'll panic when we start advertising the "Family Fun Pack" which includes concessions in the ticket prices like those bottom feeders in Cville... Until then i won't worry about only having 60,000 fans at a Directional 1 Double A game!
I don't think that boosters have been purchasing unsold tickets...that doesn't really make sense. Although it's disappointing that our streak is ending I think we have more important things to worry about, like football. Let's not forget that we're 0-1 right now and that's a whole 10 wins away from another 10 win season. Let's hope our team just grabs their lunch pail and gets to work. The players shouldn't be worried about how many empty seats are in Lane.
Boosters have been purchasing unsold tickets, this is public and common knowledge.
Didn't Weaver get rid of our Thursday night games to please some fans (presumably boosters)? Well where are those boosters now Jim? You screw us the Thursday nighter and then screw us here.
And don't forget the reason we lost "Stick it in"...
In my honest opinion, Weaver lied. He claimed that he talked with fans and made the decision to request the no Thursday night game, when in reality, he made the decision on his own merit and pissed off a lot of people in the process.
I know this because I wrote an article slamming the ACC only to discover that it was Weaver who made the call and had to retract. I was so pissed about that.
I must agree. I've never met ANYONE who had a problem with Lane on Thursday night, Hokie or otherwise.
Granted, my evidence is anecdotal, but when you have Miami fans saying that Thursday Night Lane is awesome, that's saying something.
Weaver lied.
No truer statement spoken. But then again he does have Parkinson's.
and what does that have to do with how honest he is?
What happened to wanting to watch Virginia Tech play and not the opponent? I'd love to be able to see all the games but I can't go due to work. Yeah, i go to the bigger games but I remember when we didn't win allot. I agree though that the ticket price should be lower for FCS teams but that would mean a higher price for the FSU's and Clemson games.
Market economics, what's wrong with that? Probably lots of things, from the University's point of view, but paying the same for WCU versus Miami, Clemson, FSU or a big name OOC opponent does not make sense in a free market. Sorry, Business major probably overthinking here.
But the product Virginia Tech is offering is inelastic. If they lower the ticket prices then they would lose a profit!!! They got all their biggest and brightest microecon stars on this one
You would think at least one person in the vt athletic ticketing department rook at least one basic economics class. We actually used hokie football ticket prices to explain supply and demand today...
My biggest problem with scheduling and ticket pricing is that our biggest games end up being neutral site games. I'd rather get a big opponent at Lane every now and again, but we continuously schedule games in DC and ATL. Let's hope this results in some big recruiting gets from those areas.
As an econ major, I'm thrilled we're having this conversation. And I would argue that gameday tickets are relatively elastic. Yes, us Hokies are hardcore fans, but I would still make the case that we would react to some degree to a change in the price of tickets. Unless you all did some study in class that I'm missing
As an econ major, you may enjoy these videos:
Business major bit thinking at all on this one actually.
There is no free market on Hokies tickets. If you want to watch them, you have to pay. There is no competition.
While the Hokies aren't competing with another team for tickets, the "Lane experience" IS competing with "I'll stay home and watch it on TV". Would lowering ticket prices change my decision if I was a Hokie fan within a couple hours without season tickets? It probably would. I know it's apples to acorns but plenty of other sports teams charge different rates for games based on weekday vs. weekend, rivals vs. filler, regular season vs. post-season, and evening vs. afternoon games. Minor league teams, especially in baseball and hockey, do this constantly.
Would it be beneficial for VT? I don't know. If every single home games is a sellout regardless of the prior variables, my instinct as a business would be to keep every game equally priced - this makes revenue projection easier and plays the side of "you paid $50 for Austin-Peay but you didn't get screwed with $150 tickets for FSU" to any upset consumers for paying more for a lesser opponent. Also it puts pressure on any fans that are considering not re-upping because it is a perceived shortage of available seats that may not be available if they attend a game on a whim.
I had Wisconsin season tickets two years ago. They had two tiers of prices, one for B1G games and one for everyone else, which was 10-12 dollars cheaper. I think the more expensive ones were $52.
Charging $55 for WCU is just a poor pricing decision if the goal is to sell out. It bothers me how poorly this aspect of our athletic department is run.