Tuition promotion leads to heavy student sales

IOWA CITY - An Iowa student ticket promotion giving away five $8,000 education packages contributed to nearly 2,000 football season ticket packages over the eight-day promotion, Iowa associate athletics director Rick Klatt said Wednesday.

But student season-ticket sales continue to lag way behind previous years' sales numbers. The promotion and renewals added 1,954 student season tickets from July 28 through Aug. 6, producing 'approximately 6,400” student season tickets, Klatt said. That's still down from last year's 7,300 student season tickets and run contrary to 'the high 6,000s” that Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta said in a news conference on July 25.

The promotion was designed to give away free tuition to Iowa students who buy season tickets. It was suspended to verify its legality before it was amended on Monday after review by Johnson County and state legal officials. The promotion, which ended at 5 p.m. Tuesday, allows all students to enter the tuition giveaway, not just those who buy tickets.

With the student deadline now passed, Iowa now has opened up several traditional student sections for the general public. Sections 217 through 221 now will mix the general public with students who continue to buy season tickets.

Klatt said Iowa has about 900 season tickets available for the upcoming season. Single-game tickets available range from 1,613 against Iowa State to 9,829 against Ball State.

The individual game numbers have shifted in recent weeks. Iowa now has more tickets to sell against Northern Iowa than listed two weeks ago because the Panthers released some of their 4,000-ticket allotment back to Iowa. Nearly 2,400 Iowa students bought the six-game ticket option to avoid returning on Thanksgiving weekend. That opens up considerably more tickets for the Iowa-Nebraska game on Black Friday. As of Wednesday afternoon, 8,365 tickets were available that day.

Iowa has experienced strong single-game sales this week, however. Since Sunday morning, the school has sold about 2,500 single-game tickets at a rate of 600-700 per day. Klatt said the numbers are comparable to last year's early August statistics and the ticket office is selling single-game tickets to opposing fan bases as well.

'I don't think our ticket office is doing anything like that to block sales to visiting teams,” he said. 'Our fans have been given plenty of opportunity to buy them, and they're buying them steadily. They're aware they're available. I don't think we're in the business of looking at the mailing address and saying, ‘Oh, you've got to wait.' We feel comfortable that our fans have been given the opportunity. They've acted, they continue to act, and I believe we're filling orders from the visiting team.”

Klatt said through the process the department continues to appreciate both season-ticket holders and fans who purchase single-game tickets.

'We don't take them for granted,” he said. 'We know that even as a single-game customer, it's a couple hundred dollars. It's a full day. It's a big, big commitment. It's one that you don't make on the fly.

'We appreciate that because we know it's a big commitment for season ticket holders because they're truly committing to seven Saturday afternoons. It's something we're focused on and we'll continue to work through.”

Individual tickets remaining (as of July 25/Aug. 6):

Northern Iowa: 7,197 (7,248)

Ball State: 10,007 (9,829)

Iowa State: 2,128 (1,613)

Indiana: 6,955 (6,191)

Northwestern: 7,294 (7,093)

Wisconsin: 5,166 (4,624)

Nebraska: 6,409 (8,365)

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