Attendance Question (Again)

[79 Bull]

St. Pete Times:

BIG CROWD: UCF has sold its allotment of 3,400 tickets, and USF expects a good walkup crowd. More than 20,000 tickets have been sold, excluding student sales. "It's a possibility we may open the upper deck again," associate athletic director Tom Veit said.

I don't understand this.  Last week for FAMU, it was reported that we had sold 20,000 tickets.  There is no way in h*ll that we sold 14,000 tickets during the few days before the game and walk-up (43,000 - 9,000 students/comps - 20,000 reported advance).

Now we are again saying that only 20,000 tickets have been sold, yet we will have to open the upper deck - UCF students already have tickets up there.  I wasn't a math major, but this just doesn't add up.

[MavTechKNIGHT2]

St. Pete Times:

I don't understand this.  Last week for FAMU, it was reported that we had sold 20,000 tickets.  There is no way in h*ll that we sold 14,000 tickets during the few days before the game and walk-up (43,000 - 9,000 students/comps - 20,000 reported advance).

Now we are again saying that only 20,000 tickets have been sold, yet we will have to open the upper deck - UCF students already have tickets up there.  I wasn't a math major, but this just doesn't add up.

That is odd.  I agree.  Especially since the 3500 allottment is sold out and another 1000 from SGA is gone.  I know there has to be at least another 500 "others".  That would mean 5K for UCF right now.  So, USF only has 15K tickets sold?  You have that alone in season tickets, right?

No sense.

[Eric_Soncrant]

79 Bull:

I think I can help clear some of this up for you.  The lower two sections seats about 42,000 people.  We have currently only opened the upper deck so that the 600 UCF students could sit together, at this point there was nowhere in the lower sections with 600 tickets together.

As far as the expected attendance is concerned, keep in mind that we don't sell single game tickets between the 20's to protect our donors who make a contribution and purchase them as season tickets.  It wouldn't be fair to have someone buy them on  a single game basis and sit next to a $2,000 annual donor who buys 8 season tickets.  This accounts for some of that.  We do sell those seats to groups that purchase 20 or more tickets to help fill in the gaps.  But that will account for some of the discrepancy.

Add those seats to the 10,000 student seats plus the seats that are still available and you'll get closer to that number.  Hope that helps.

Eric

[79 Bull]

Thanks for the reply, Eric.  But here is the bottom line question that doesn't add up.

We have sold 15,000 season tickets.  UCF fans must be at least at 5,000 with their 3,400 allocation plus the extra 600 students plus whatever else they have bought from USF or on ticketmaster.  That's 20,000 right there.  So we have sold zero single tickets to USF fans and other locals?  Heck, we know ET bought a few.

Not trying to be difficult, but it is very confusing.

[Zoomer]

We need to get the word out to donors to stop selling their seats to brokers and/or fans of the opposing team! We sit in Sec 235 and I can't tell you how many gosh darn FAMU people we had around us. No way those FAMU fans were USF Bulls season donors.

[Bull94]

We need to get the word out to donors to stop selling their seats to brokers and/or fans of the opposing team! We sit in Sec 235 and I can't tell you how many gosh darn FAMU people we had around us. No way those FAMU fans were USF Bulls season donors.

Zoomer,

I bet they bought blocks of 20 to help fill in the gaps like Eric said above. I sit in 135  and had quite a few around me. It's better to have them filled than empty.

[BullGrad95]

15,000 season tix

10,000 students

 5,000 ucfrs

there's 30,000 right there.  I could easily see there being 5 or 6K in walk up sales tomorrow.  That puts us at 36,000.  As mentioned the lower bowl hold 42,000.  No single seats sold between the 20's.  If ucf's contingent takes up the SE corner of the stadium, that is less than 5,000 seats.  As Eric mentioned, they are trying to accomodate "group" seating for ucf.  Not enough remaining space to have 600 seats together in the lower bowl.  That's why the upper deck will be opened.  My guess is that we'll be approaching 40,000 tomorrow.  Hopefully this will be a growing issue for us.  As we (hopefully) sell more season tickets, there will be less and less room for the visitors.  With any luck, there will still be the small sliver of the SE corner for the visiting band and their fans, and the rest of the lower bowl will all be USF.  Then we can relegate the visitors to the upper deck only.  

[KB]

The 20,000 number reported is single game tickets and now that I look at it, it probably includes ucf's allocation...so 20,000 single game + 15,000 season ticket holders + 9,000 usf students = 44,000 give or take of course

[KB]

... keep in mind that we don't sell single game tickets between the 20's to protect our donors who make a contribution and purchase them as season tickets.  It wouldn't be fair to have someone buy them on  a single game basis and sit next to a $2,000 annual donor who buys 8 season tickets.  

I didn't know this and was always curious about it.  Glad to see it.

[TripleB]

The 20,000 number reported is single game tickets and now that I look at it, it probably includes ucf's allocation...so 20,000 single game + 15,000 season ticket holders + 9,000 usf students = 44,000 give or take of course

The 20,000 includes season ticket holders ...