The always UGA-friendly AJC reports a news item everyone knew was coming: Hartman Fund donations are lower than last year. We speculated as much last week. According to the AJC story, donations were down 11% and totaled just over $23 million. Damon says these are more in line with 2007 levels than last year's record haul of $26.3 million. Then again, '07 contributions yielded a Sugar Bowl victory. Last year's gob of moolah bought us befuddlement and pain. (In fairness, there were a couple of good moments.)
For you first time buyers, cutoff scores won't be figured until April. Season ticket turnover is expected to be around 2 to 3%. Order forms will be dispatched to the Bulldog Nation in early March. Good luck.
Quinton
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19 comments:
I can't imagine that anyone that got tickets last year (for the first time) would forgo them this year. The loss in contributions must be due to people who shared a season ticket package last year failing to renew due to the economy. On a side note, does anyone know how long after graduation new alumni can donate to get "young alumni" tickets? I have been in graduate school for a couple years and would like to start contributing in the near future, but can't compete with the well established contributors. I'm now living in the Raleigh/Durham area and one of my friends who is a UNC grad recently complained to me that this was the first year they require a contribution to get season tickets. A whopping $100 donation to be exact. I just laughed . . .
As soon as you graduate you can start donating. 1 point= $1. Your points accumulate over time. So if you donated $200 your first year and then $500 the next year, you would have 700 points. Last year the point total for first time season tickets was 10,500 points. That doesnt mean you have to donate $10,500 in one year to get tickets, its a cummulative point total. I expect that number to come down a little bit this year.
What's the point of the AJC even bringing this up? Maybe we need some Thursday night games to turn this around? Or a canned-food drive for a seat in the stands? Whatever. I'm not knocking the post, but I read this earlier at work and thought, gee, right, "whatever."
Our donations are down but its not like they took a huge hit. Donations totaled 23.5 million this year and it was 26.3 million last year. I would say that our AA is pretty much recession proof.
Thanks for the info Mitch. I am aware of how the "points" system works, but I had heard there was a system in place to give young alums priority due to our scant financial standings. Maybe I am delusional to think the school would give me a leg up! So, here is my situation. My father is a long time season ticket holder and plans to be until the day he dies. The way the system is setup allows my mother to inherit the tickets in the event of his passing. Unfortunately, she is the only person who can inherit the tickets (it's a business after all). That means that I have to make donations in my own name in order to get tickets. While I hope to one day be in a financial situation that affords me the ability to get my own tickets (hence grad school)it sounds like I better start making small donations now to secure my ticket holding future!
This isn't likely due to folks not renewing season tickets. I gaurantee you we sold all avialble season tickets.
This is probably a function of people still renewing tickets and giving closer to the minimum, but less than they gave last year.
For example, if your min was $400 a seat and last year you gave 1K for two seats this year you may have given $800.
This is the result of the amount first time donors had to contribute last year to get tickets vs. what you can contribute to get tickets this year. That's all. No big deal. When $23 million signifies a "down year" you're in pretty damn good shape. Unlike Tech who can't even manage to GIVE away enough tickets to fill that craphole of a stadium.
The AA used to have a program to help young alums, but they stopped it around '03 or '04 due to the high demand for tickets by older alums.
Unfortunately it's basic supply and demand. There are only 92,746 seats in the stadium. There are over 250,000 living alumni, and countless other fans who are not alums of the University.
This is a similar issue with regard to 'how many seats do we allocate to CURRENT students'? Other stadiums, like Tiger Stadium at LSU, seem to have many more current students in the stadium, which makes for a very loud and raucous atmosphere.
Sanford, at times, is very subdued. This is, IMO, because so much of the stadium is full of older alums. I'm not complaining about the atmosphere, I'm just making an observation.
There are 18,000 seats allocated to students at each game. The reason it seems like less is because the students sit in three distinctly separate areas: West Endzone, Northeast Lower Level, and Northeast Upper Level.
Y'all may be able to help me with this. I've always wondered about the makeup of the fans in the west endzone seats. Is that another student section or something? They seem to be pretty loud and young, in general. I've always assumed it was a grad student section, or something like that.
I'll hang up and listen. Thanks.
Yes, it is a student section, and yes, we're often the only ones "bringing the noise".
We have way too many alumni at games who like to sit on their hands or at minimum just get loud on third downs.
As a current student, I can guarantee you that there will come a time that I will not be jumping up on down on the bleachers and screaming for every 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th down. And I am as die-hard as they come. I just don't think that I'm going to enjoy suffering a headache and hangover throughout 3 quarters of the game is going to be fun when I'm 40. ;)
Wow... there are other young Dawg fans in RDU?? I thought I was the only one!
I think they should put age restrictions on seats. Not like "you're too old," but I am severely misplaced. I still am obnoxious, headache-giving loud for most of the game, and the people around me don't take too kindly to that. But, seriously, what am I supposed to do?
I wonder how much Tech got for the "right" to buy their tickets this year? I doubt the AUC is going to do a big write up on that.
I've never been to LSU, but I've heard (and seen on TV) that the student section is right on top of the visiting bench. This would seem to make for maximum harassment.
I think we ought to spread the students in the lower north side across the length of the field (and less vertically, next to the band) for a better impact on the visiting bench. I don't think we lose any "prestige" seats in this area b/c the sun is dreadful and the view is not particularly good at the lower levels (especially if you are seated like an oldy).
Maybe this will help with noise, though the most important thing for noise and excitement is winning.
Loran, whatya got?
Jethro:
A) The student section in Tiger Stadium is all in one endzone. SEC rules prohibit student seating from being behind the visiting team's bench in any sport.
B) You could potentially put students in the bottom rows of the south side (north side would be illegal due to the rule described above) but the folks sitting in the high $ seats behind them would grip because it would cause the entire section to stand for the majority of the game.
I think the ideal situation for maximizing crowd noise from the student section would be to move the current section in the northeast corner of the lower level to the northwest corner so the students would be yelling back into the closed end as opposed to yelling into the open (west) end.
That said, there's something to be said for having a student section near both endzones for any time an opposing team is in the redzone.
Here's one donor who did not renew. One spouse lost job and other took a huge paycut. We will be sad when the season comes but just could not do it.
Any speculation on what the cut-off this year might be? I think it was 2,000 in '07 (but I may be wrong) and it was over 10,000 last year. If giving is down ten percent, would that potentially make the cut-off around 9,000? Any insiders out there lurking that might want to speculate?
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