Students may have a harder time finding tickets to football and basketball games next year if proposed changes to the contract between the student government and the Athletics Department are ratified. The changes, which would reduce the number of student tickets available, would also extend the existing agreement between the organizations until 2020, an additional 10 years.
The revision would require students to pay $1,322,910 for tickets next year. It would also allow the ASUO, for the first time, to meet a contract stipulation requiring it to pay half the fair market value of tickets, Athletics Department Finance Committee
Chairman Kevin Day said.
He also said the changes may help curtail the “no-show factor” — students who get free tickets to games and don’t use them.
The ADFC, which bargains with the Athletics Department to buy sports tickets for students, currently funds about 46.8 percent of the fair market value of tickets and has failed to meet the obligations set forth four years ago in its initial 10-year agreement, Day said during a November Student Senate meeting.
Although the contract is nearly finalized, Day said it will not be signed until next term to allow time for the Athletics Department to announce any changes to ticket prices, which will partially determine how much money the ADFC needs.
Day said the Athletics Department hasn’t made any price changes public, and the figures may be made public next week when the ADFC budget is submitted.
Day told the Senate on Wednesday the budget will fall well under the 7 percent maximum increase approved by the Senate.
The ADFC received the 7 percent benchmark for the Senate on Nov. 17 after the ASUO Executive vetoed an earlier Senate decision to give the group a 5.3 percent increase.
He said a draft of the ADFC’s budget, which is partially determined by the contract, will be submitted on Feb. 9 and presented to the Senate Feb. 16.
Associate Athletic Director Steve McBride said it is difficult to finalize the contract each year because of factors including ticket price changes, game schedule changes and the cost of tuition and airline tickets for student athletes.
He said there is no set date for when the Athletics Department usually releases changes to ticket prices. He said football ticket information should be available in the next few weeks.
McBride also said an increase in
donations required to get certain
public seats scheduled every three years has been postponed until next year. The donation schedule affects the fair market value of student tickets.
Basketball prices are on a different timeline, he said.
Under the contract revision, students will lose 400 football tickets, giving students about 5,700 per game, and 300 basketball tickets, leaving them with about 2,000 per game, Day said.
Day said the seating changes will be beneficial.
“Yes, we’ll be losing seats, but the fact is we’re saving students money in the long run, and I think it’s a good thing,” Day said.
ADFC member Jack Crocifisso said he supports extending the contract.
“It’s worked out really well between students and the Athletics Department to have that contract,” he said. “From the standpoint of the Athletics Department, … 50 percent of ticket prices is a pretty generous offer. … So to have a contract that will be in place that guarantees students won’t ever pay more than 50 percent, I see as an opportunity.”
Crocifisso said it has been unclear whether the ADFC or Athletics Department should take the lead in addressing the no-show problem. Fulfilling the contract will encourage the department to help solve it, he said.
“Because we’ll be in full fulfillment of the contract, students will be able to more easily negotiate possible solutions that would involve both parties,” he said. “Up until this point, it’s been hard for students to make demands on the Athletics Department because we weren’t in full fulfillment of the contract.”
He added that his department favors extending the contract.
“We’re happy with the way that relationship has worked under the 50 percent agreement, so I think we’d like also to turn it into a longer-term agreement,” he said.
Day said the revisions are designed to address the no-show factor by changing when tickets are released before games. Currently, they are dispersed to students two weeks before games; they may be released only a week before under the proposal.
Day said the reduced time frame will help prevent students from missing games.
“If you shorten the period before the game, hopefully less variables come into play when (students) can no longer go to the game,” he said.
Senate Vice President Eden Cortez said he had not heard about the possible extension of the contract, but an extension shouldn’t be made until the no-show factor is addressed.
“I don’t think (delaying ticket releases) really solves the no-show factor,” he said. “The no-show factor is definitely a big deal, and I don’t think the ADFC is really trying to address the issue.”
Cortez said he will consider the 10-year extension when the budget comes before the Senate.
“I’ll definitely try to contact them and see if there can be a better negotiation of the contract where students won’t have to pay (50 percent of fair market value),” he said.
Crocifisso said the ADFC has considered other ways of addressing the problem. He said many ideas have been proposed, but the option of
students paying a nominal fee to pick up tickets was discarded because it raised several concerns.
“It opens a can of worms that other committee members weren’t willing or necessarily capable of taking on,” he said.
Some students might not be able to afford tickets and might also be able to resell their tickets if the fee was used, Crocifisso said. Who would collect the money and what it would be used for are other concerns, he said.
He added that many campus organizations, including EMU Club Sports, the Outdoor Program and the EMU Craft Center, implement similar fee systems.
“That was shot down pretty early, and maybe, possibly down the road, those ideas will come up again to make those students who are interested in going to games (spend) a nominal fee,” he said.
Crocifisso said other proposals include foregoing tickets and allowing students to scan their ID cards at the gates, but concerns linger that students would show up, stand in line and not be able to get in.
He said the Athletics Department has a scanner in the test stages that may be used to track which students are going to games in order to get more accurate statistics about the problem — information student leaders have said is lacking in the past and has “further implications” for addressing the issue.
“It’s very beta at this point,” Crocifisso said, indicating that the plan is in its early stages.