Season Tickets... Part III

[Jim Johnson]

Okay... so how does a football team that plays in a stadium 90 miles from campus that started I-A football about the same time as USF have TWICE as many season tickets sold??

Amazing.

From the U Conn official site:

http://uconnhuskies.com/AllStories/MFootball/2005/08/22/20050822.html

UConn Football Season Ticket Total Surpasses 30,000

STORRS, Conn. (August 22, 2005) - The season ticket total for the 2005 University of Connecticut football season reached another milestone this week as the number surpassed the 30,000 total with a week and a half before the first game. Although single-game tickets remain only for the Thursday, Sept. 1 opener vs. Buffalo, a limited amount of six-game season ticket packages remain on sale.

The 30,000-plus season ticket base will easily be the largest in school history as UConn sold 24,000 season tickets in 2003 -- the first year of play in Rentschler Field -- and 28,000 last year. The total of 30,000 is even more staggering considering that the UConn season ticket base was only 4,000 just four years ago in 2001 when the team played at Memorial Stadium on the Storrs campus.

"This is a momentous day in the history of UConn Athletics and another significant step in the continued enhancement of our football program," said UConn Director of Athletics Jeffrey A. Hathaway. "We are grateful to the supporters of our University and our season ticket holders for helping us reach this milestone. Furthermore, we thank all our student-athletes, coaches and staff, both past and present, for their contributions to this achievement. UConn Football at Rentschler Field has become a source of pride for our state and its citizens, and we look forward to sharing more successes with our fans in the future."

"On behalf of our entire football program, I would like to thank our great fans for the support they have shown," said UConn head football coach Randy Edsall. "We are making Rentschler Field one of the best home venues in all of college football and reaching the 30,000 season ticket mark is another tremendous step in the growth of our program. We look forward to the loud cheers of all our fans this fall."

Season tickets remain on sale for the 2005 UConn football season and can be purchased by calling 1-877-AT-UCONN or by visiting the Athletic Ticket Office in Storrs. Season tickets are available in the Club, Chairback, Reserved, and Family sections while the Preferred sections have sold out for the third consecutive year.

Single-game tickets for the Sept. 1 Buffalo opener under the lights at 7:30 p.m. can also be bought in Storrs, at any Ticketmaster outlet, Ticketmaster.com or by calling Ticketmaster.com at 860-525-4500 or 203-624-0033.

The Huskies open the 2005 home season on Thursday, Sept. 1 against Buffalo and return to action on Saturday, Sept. 10 against Liberty. The other home games are all against BIG EAST Conference opponents: Friday, Oct 7 vs. Syracuse, Saturday, Oct. 22 vs. Rutgers, Saturday, Nov. 26 against South Florida and Saturday, Dec. 3 vs. Louisville.

UConn posted an 8-4 record last year and defeated Toledo by a 39-10 score in the Motor City Bowl - the Huskies' first-ever bowl appearance. Six of seven home games were sold out at Rentschler Field.

[South_Tampa_Knight]

What else is there to do at UCONN?

What is the closest other Div 1 football team?

[Papa_Bull]

Related thread for those interested:

http://www.thebullspen.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=BigEast;action=display;num=1121987746

[Apis Bull]

What else is there to do at UCONN?

What is the closest other Div 1 football team?

I believe the Rent is only 30 miles from UConn.

The only other thing to do is New England Patriots football, but that's a hard ticket to come by and it's 90 miles away.

BC would be the closest D-1A school.

[BullDoug]

State of Connecticut has no professional teams except hockey(?).  There sitch is very similar to Nebraska.  The entire state donates to the program because that's the closest thing to a professional football or basketball team in the state.

With that said, USF will have a hard time to ever have a 30K season ticket base b/c of the Gators, Seminoles, & Bucs.  UF & FSU tradition is very deep in the state of FL.  One or both will need to become mediocre for a decade and USF will need to become a BE/BCS bowl power to break that mark.  IMO, USF prolly won't break 20K until the FootBulls win the BE.  It may take 2-3 seasons of 7-8 wins to get 18K.

In actuality, there is no reason to buy season tickets unless you just wanna throw money at the program.  That's why us die hard alums do it.  When there is 10K available seats every weekend, why not walkup to the games you wanna see instead of paying a donation plus tix including a D1A or two.

[Apis Bull]

I can think of a couple of reasons to buy season tickets.

1.  You'll have them when USF does become a hot commodity.

2.  You know where you're sitting for each game.

3.  It makes it harder to have something, "come up" and make you miss the game.

[JoeB]

Connecticut's only pro team is actually the WNBA.  They haven't had the Whalers (NHL) for years.  But judging from their basketball programs (both men and women) , they seem to support the teams that do well.  And UConn is on the way up in football, very similar to USF.

How many USF alums live in the Tampa Bay area?  We should get more than 20,000 season ticket holders based on this.

[Ricky the Bull]

STK is exactly right... there is very little competition for the entertainment/sports dollar for many, many miles in any direction.  They also have have established rivalries with opponents translated from basketball (e.g. 'Cuse) that will cause interest to be greater.

[Papa_Bull]

First of all they have a big time fan base just from Basketball alone and they have countless more alumni than us.

But most importantly, Conn is a very rich state and I'm sure their fans have more $$$$ to spend on entertainment.

[Apis Bull]

Connecticut's only pro team is actually the WNBA.  They haven't had the Whalers (NHL) for years.  But judging from their basketball programs (both men and women) , they seem to support the teams that do well.  And UConn is on the way up in football, very similar to USF.

How many USF alums live in the Tampa Bay area?  We should get more than 20,000 season ticket holders based on this.

Actually they have a couple of AHL teams.  They may also have an arena football team.