40% ticket increase...

O

Orangeblood

1,000+ Posts
... for season tickets and renewal is due by the end of September (moved from January).

This is ******* insane. It has prompted me to drop the extra pair that I buy every year. If I didn't do the tailgate every weekend, I'd tell them to **** off and LHN would be my new best friend.
 
Yep, Patterson is clearly only interested in the bottom line. Or put another way, he's already starting to try to wring the blood out of a turnip.

Instead of pursuing a sports management career after law school, he should have been an ambulance chaser; it would have fit his style and his attitude toward loyal fans much better.

I imagine he and Plonsky have a great time around a conference table, rubbing their hands together as they come up with new and different ways to gouge fans.

Look at the back of the baseball season ticket application and you'll see a chart that shows the now required minimum donation and seat prices for any location in the Disch.

Under DeLoss, the only minimum Foundation donation that was required was for the new first four rows. Now, for my seats, he requires a minimum donation of $500 per seat and the cost of each seat is now $250. So, two seats now cost at least $1,500. And if you sit in Sections 4 - 8 behind home plate, you get the opportunity to pay $2,000 for two seats.

So, for 30 games, Steve wants $25 per ticket from me. And if you sit in Sections 4 - 8 behind home plate, you get the opportunity to pay $2,000 for two seats, or $33.33 per ticket. Those prices are more than a bit much for a college baseball game ticket -- no matter how great the program.

And we all know that this is just the start of required donation/season ticket price creep. It will be interesting to see how many of the people in my section don't renew this year, and how many longtime seat holders bail in successive years.

I won't be surprised at all if Foundation bribes are required soon for each individual sports (rather than one donation covering all UT sports). And I won't be surprised if Patterson goes to the Ohio State system where your seats in football (and maybe all other sports, too) move around each year depending on how much you bribe the athletic department (as opposed to all the other DKR bribers) that particular year. Once that happens, longtime fan loyalty will be entirely (instead of only partially as it is now) a thing of the past.

I hope, but don't expect, that the new UT president sends this guy packing and hires Oliver Luck, which is what the University should have done in the first place. At least Luck has a personality, and simply wanted UT to terminate Mack before he came on board. Patterson didn't have any such scruples.

Steve could go back to pro sports where his attitude and style fit much better. He would have another opportunity to pay Disney big bucks there to help him figure out how best to gouge his fan base.

I haven't liked this guy from the first time I met him at the football banquet last year. OBTW, he's now cancelled the annual football banquet, just like he did all the Longhorn Clubs around the state.
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What a guy . . . !
 
Oh for the simpler times back when there were no season tickets except for those few box seats down on the first few rows.

There was no Longhorn Foundation and Bellmont hadn't figured out that they could make money off the baseball program.

When the big drawing games would come we would show up and tailgate and wait for the gates to open. That was usually two hours before game time. Then we would rush in and put stuff in our seats in section two and then back out to the parking lot we would go.

Which by the way of course the parking was also first come, first served, back then and wasn't a problem till those big games.

There was a Baseball Booster Club back then headed up by Lee Yeakel. I know many will remember the Baseball BBQ held at his house each year as a fund raiser. Alvin Crow would usually come and be the entertainment.

That all changed in the mid 1980's and even more so after the renovations took place. They were able to displace finally the undesirables in section two (you know who you are if you were there) with the new seating plan. They had tried before, but never quite succeeded.

Disch-Faulk Field became whatever corporate sponsor gives us the most money field and the atmosphere was finally changed to a minor league game feel with all the promotions and such. More ways to get corporate money involved. Gone for good were the days when it was a college game feel with genuine emotions involved without any prodding needed.

Now it seems that another stage is here that will suck any last remaining bit of a college feel to the games. In fact it looks like Texas baseball tickets could surpass several major league ticket costs. Maybe Jerry Jones is available (for a substantial fee of course) as a consultant to really put the operation into overdrive. He has it down to fine art without even a winning product on the field.

Bellmont is striking while the iron is hot as the baseball team comes off their Omaha appearance. This might have not sit well the prior few years. It may not even this year, but certainly better now than then.

Will they price themselves out finally and kill the Bevo laying the golden cowpatties? No, probably not. There will most likely always be enough people that will fork over the dough no matter the price for tickets, parking, concessions, and now a fee for the right to buy your seats.

I guess this is looked at as progress from the powers that be in Bellmont. It sure doesn't to me. They can buy and sell almost everything it seems now.

One thing they can't however, is my memories and the memories others have who were there of those simpler times back when it was still a college game and atmosphere. Back before there were big bucks to be made.

I feel like bizarro Bill Little with this wistful muse.
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It is very heartfelt though in meaning at least to me.

Hookem and keep digging deep in those pockets honfans folk.
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Yep, as I said I am dropping 2 extra seats that I usually buy. Looks like some people that usually rely on me for tix are out of luck from now on.
 
I have a theory.

There are in fact a lot of season ticket holders that don't show up for the majority of the games, which leads to empty seats under the roof.

Maybe this is at least partially an attempt to flush out those of us that cannot for whatever reason commit to sitting in our seats and watching the games.

I am certainly debating what to do.

I think the diehard fans in sections 4-8 are getting screwed the worst, unless you guys are already making big foundation contributions that cover the new "cost of ownership"
 
Wow, I got my application a week or so ago, but did not look at the prices. I just figured they would be about the same.
To sit in my three seats, which I have had for over 35 years, would cost $2250. Last year, I believe the total was $720.
I am in shock.
I figure this is just a prelude to the same thing happening in football. I know where I sit, that it costs more in LF donations to sit there for new applicants. The next renewal, I think we will see that all "grandfathered" seats no longer exist, and we will have to pay the LF donation current price plus the hefty increase they are sure to add to the tix themselves as well.
Likely the same for other sports, too.
I have been thinking of checking out of this scene for some time, and this will likely be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Actually, it's more than a straw, it's more like dumping a load of cement on me.
So much for the 60+ years of attendance at UT events. Thanks, Patterson, hope the new fans in China and Tierra del Fuego take up the slack. We're just bugs on your marketing windshield.
 
Call the LHF about the required donation for your tickets. I was pretty irate, but they seemed to say to me it wasn't required.

It is a bunch of crap. I have no idea who they think will go to games in February and March and on weekdays if they screw over the long time season ticket holders.
 
What do you mean it isn't required? It says it is required.
The letter with the ticket app says, " By renewing your tickets on or before Sept. 30, you will guarantee your seat locations and will renew at our loyalty price, which is significantly less than a new season ticket order." blah, blah, blah
On the back of the ticket app., there is a loyalty and new chart of prices. It says for section 1-3 the seat price is $250 and the donation price is $500, and the "Total Cost of Ownership" is $750. For new customers, the price is $275 for the seat and $500 for the donation, for a "Total Cost of Ownership" of $775, hardly a significant difference.
I will call Monday and make sure that what they clearly state in this application is correct. Maybe it isn't.
If it is, there may be a whole lot of empty seats at a whole lot of UT baseball games for a whole lot of seasons.
When it says you can renew at the "loyalty price" and that price is $750 per ticket, it doesn't seem unambiguous to me. But I will call them before burning bridges.
 
I just called the UT ticket office, and the employee informed me that my reading of the baseball ticket application was correct.
To renew my baseball tickets in section 2 will cost $250 for the ticket plus $500 foundation donation, a total of $750 each, due by September 30.
And she verified that we can expect the same increase for football tickets. There will be a separate donation required for each renewed football ticket, depending on where you sit. My section is 31, and there will be a $500 donation required per seat for section 31, plus the $420 season ticket price for next year.
Last year, for a donation of around $400, I renewed my baseball and football season tickets, got OU tickets, got a baseball parking pass in a distant lot, and got a football parking pass in a distant galaxy.
This year I can get the same thing, for only $3500.
I know there are many people who donate a lot now to the foundation, but are there really that many waiting in line to buy the tickets of all those who will drop them due to this increase?
 
OK, sorry, I called the LHF office and got completely different information.
The guy agreed that I could just renew the tickets, without any additional donation per seat. He said the two charts on the back of the ticket application, and the information in the letter does not apply to seat renewals, only to persons moving their seats or applying for new seats. He also said the person in the ticket office may not have understood what I was asking, but I think I was clear.
The LHF guy also said I could renew football at my present donation rate, but I suppose that remains to be seen.
This only leaves the price increase of the season ticket in baseball, a mere 40% as pointed out by Orangeblood above.
Sorry about the confusion, but I'm not the only one mad about this mailing, per the LHF rep.
 
That's sort of good to hear. The price increase is a bunch of crap, but it is better than being raped by the LHF.
 
Give it time B. This is just the introduction of the idea to soften us up for the implementation in a few years (or less).
 
Because we lived close by at the time, we had season tickets to SMU Football and Basketball. We moved and werer giving up our tickets anyway, but SMU went to this 'minimum donation' concept several years back; however,they did not grandfather anyone in at their current donation level. Minimum donation amounts were determined by stadium/arena location, and if you wanted to keep your existing tix and location you had to "Pony Up" the new amount.

Yes, I know, it's SMU and not Texas, but that scheme is not new by any stretch.
 
Orangeblood,

Although I've kept it for many years because it was reasonably priced, with this silly new price increase, I'm going to give up one of my two remaining tickets since my better half doesn't go to more than a few games a year.

Gerald will lose out on getting my usual extra ticket, and I'll have to scrounge for an extra post-season ticket when my lady wants to go.

But I'll have the satisfaction of not spending money I don't have to spend, and also the satisfaction of not buying into the ridiculous robber baron scheme of this new corporate CEO-like/attorney-for-real AD.

Belmont under this new guy has reached my tipping point (as he has obviously for yours as well). I'm already ready for a new AD.

I wonder if there will be a mass movement among the Longhorn baseball fan base to give up tickets that they've kept for years but didn't really need. I hope so.
 
It's only a matter of time before Patterson begins blacking out LHN baseball broadcasts in Austin, just like a pro team.
 
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