Get Butts in the Seats with Tiered Ticket Prices

Those of you who follow A Dime Back know we regularly talk about what UConn can do to improve the fan experience and get more people to attend games. On our podcast last week, we touched on the fact that with women’s basketball attendance flagging (and men’s to a degree as well) and with football still trying to drum up support, UConn is missing opportunities to engage the fan base.

I mentioned on the podcast that when the women were winning in competitive, exciting games, the family-friendly atmosphere that the university maintained for those games was fine. But now that they blowout teams no one has heard of, the olds and the little girls aren’t coming to games as much. UConn needs to increase student participation, and make the games more appealing to younger – especially recent – grads.

Serving alcohol at Gampel would help, and there are obviously marketing changes that would help increase attendance – specifically, stop selling women’s sports as “family” entertainment, and sell it as, you know, sports. But the biggest thing UConn could be doing (which I also mentioned on the podcast, but Tyler cut it because he’s a monster) is making ticket prices lower for recent grads and for lower-interest games.

When you’re a college student, tickets to games are cheap. For a few dollars, as a UConn student you can watch a basketball, football or hockey game. Then you graduate, you are suddenly expected to be able to pay full-price for tickets. My season ticket package for football, including parking, was north of $700 for a pair of tickets. When I was 22, there was NO CHANCE I could afford that.

What UConn should do is make remaining a paying, attending fan really easy. And cheap. Tiered ticket prices for alumni, starting at, say, $15 a game for grads for the first five years. The prices increase the farther from graduation the alum gets, until they are fully functional adults (you know, for the most part) who can afford full-price tickets. UConn needs to focus on keeping the recent alums connected to the school, and selling cheaper tickets is a great way to do that. Especially given the number of empty seats we are seeing at football, women’s basketball and some men’s basketball games.

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UConn also needs to realize that not all games are created equal. You are not going to sell out a men’s game against Central when you charge the same price as any other regular season game. Recognize that this is a low interest game, and getting warm bodies in the building should be the priority. Selling single-game tickets for the cupcake match-ups at a lower price means people who wouldn’t pay full price might actually go.

The same goes for football. We are not selling out the Rent. It simply isn’t happening. In the days leading up to games where there are literally thousands of unsold tickets, UConn should drop the price of tickets. Selling a ticket for $10 is better than not selling it at all. Because someone who isn’t willing to pay full price at the start of the season, isn’t going to pay full-price the week before the game. The priority needs to be on getting the attendance up, not on the total ticket sales. That will be important, but if there’s no one to sell the tickets to, it just doesn’t matter. And, more importantly, ticket sales will follow attendance.

A filled seat is always going to be better than an empty seat, regardless of how much that person paid. Because $10 > $0. UConn needs to look past the sales and see the bigger picture, which is getting every game as near to a sell-out as possible. When we’re on TV with huge swathes of empty seats it looks terrible. We should be making our school as appealing as possible for when conference realignment rears its ugly head again.