Big 12 schools, including Iowa State, charge visiting marching bands for seats

If Cyclone fans have to listen to 'Texas Fight” after a Longhorn touchdown during the Oct. 31 homecoming game, they can take comfort knowing the University of Texas will pay Iowa State University $65 per seat for each marching band member.

UT caught heat earlier this fall when people learned the school would charge Texas Tech University $100 for each band member in the stands at the Nov. 26 game in Austin. The announcement came after a decision in July by the four Texas universities in the Big 12 Conference to end an informal agreement to let marching bands in for free.

'The Big 8 schools charged,” said Texas Tech Senior Associate Athletics Director Robert Giovanetti, referring to the Midwest-based conference that preceded the Big 12. 'The four Texas schools decided to go along with that.”

Texas and Oklahoma State University plan to bring their marching bands to Ames this fall, said Steve Malchow, ISU senior associate athletics director. Because seats for the bands come from the allotted tickets ISU makes available for visiting teams, the athletic department doesn't know how many band members from each school will attend.

The Cyclone Marching Band seldom travels to Big 12 away games, going to only one game - at Kansas State University - in the past five years. Malchow said.

But ISU does travel to Iowa City for games against the University of Iowa because Iowa's public universities don't charge each other's marching bands for seats at away games.

The Big Ten Conference also has a reciprocal agreement not to charge visiting bands, said Kevin Kastens, director of the Hawkeye Marching Band. On years when the UI band isn't traveling to ISU, leaders choose a Big Ten away game, he said. In 2014, the Hawkeye Marching Band went to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

Both the ISU and UI marching bands travel to bowl games.

Taking a marching band on the road is a major expense, Giovanetti said. Texas Tech's marching band, the Goin' Band from Raiderland, has 400 members, but often needs closer to 600 seats because of tubas, drums and other gear, he said. At $100 a seat for the UT game in November, Texas Tech will spend $40,000 to $60,000.

'But we like to play at a high school the night before, so it's kind of a recruiting trip, too,” Giovanetti said.

Ending reciprocity for visiting bands was about fairness because not all bands are as large as Texas Tech's, he added.

The changes come amid declining student ticket sales at many universities and increased athletic department expenses, including new NCAA requirements that schools pay student-athletes stipends in addition to the cost of tuition, room, board and books.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year the average student attendance at college football games was down 7.1 percent since 2009. The newspaper analyzed ticket sales at 50 public colleges with top-division football teams. Neither Iowa nor Iowa State was part of the report.