- Jun 9, 2014
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In terms of your smart observation of UF ticket sales being lower I had noticed the same thing before and looked at UT's stadium and how much they charge for tickets.
UT charges their fans more for the same premium location seats than UF charges. Plus UT has a bigger stadium and sells more tickets than UF in spite of UF and Bama consistently defeating them.
My first question was where do the UT hillbillies get the money? The point is they did get the fans to pay for expensive tickets and were very profitable recently.
UF may require a larger donations for premium seats but with tickets now being non deductible that may change.
There is less to do in Tennessee than Florida so maybe that is a factor.
UF has less games recently due to hurricanes so that could affect the numbers some.
UT is about to start a 340 million dollar remodel of their stadium. UT was almost out of reserves years ago. Instead of learning their lesson and building up reserves they are loading up on debt for a 340 million dollar renovation.
Where this could back fire on UT is if the business cycle hits them with a normal slow down. Tickets are a discretionary expense that can be cut when things slow down. Cheaper to watch the game on TV. Technology has made watching from home more enjoyable than in the past . That could hurt their ticket sales and wipe their reserves out again when they need more money to cover their much larger debt service.
Let's look at Auburn rather than Tennessee since the comps are closer.
It's not stadium size. Heck, we rarely even fill ours anymore. Jordan-Hare Stadium seats fewer fans than Ben Hill Griffin and yet Auburn outpaced us in ticket sales by 4.4M. It's not price. Auburn charges $0.25 less per ticket on average.
Is there less to do in Auburn than Gainesville? Perhaps but my guess is not by much. Gainesville isn't exactly a megalopolis and it's an hour/hour and a half's drive to the beach. There aren't that many kids laying on Crescent Beach who could be instead at Ben Hill Griffin.
The answer is the product on the field. Auburn over the past decade has consistently fielded top-flight teams. We haven't.