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Seat fees to raise cost of a season for USC fans
Starting in ’09, season-ticket holders must pay a premium for right to purchase seats
Written by JOSEPH PERSON
jperson@thestate.com
Posted on 08.09.08
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South Carolina season-ticket holders can keep their seats at Williams-Brice Stadium next season, as long as they’re willing to pay for what athletics officials say is the cost of being competitive in the Southeastern Conference.
USC athletics director Eric Hyman on Friday unveiled a long-anticipated seat-equity plan that will require fans to pay premiums for the right to purchase their seats beginning with the 2009 season.
USC’s board of trustees unanimously approved a proposal that has been a year and a half in the making.
The premiums — Hyman prefers calling them “seat donations” — range from $50 to $395 per seat per season for full-season ticket books. Students will not have to pay the fees. An announcement on tickets for USC faculty and staff members will come later.
The plan affects 48,500 seats in the 80,250-seat stadium and is expected to generate $7.6 million in annual revenue. About 500 fans with six-game season-ticket packages will pay a premium as low as $25, although the majority of ticket-holders face fees of $145 or $200 — not counting their Gamecock Club dues or the cost of the tickets.
Hyman has been searching for new revenue streams to fund the $200 million in facilities improvements he envisions for the Gamecocks. Since arriving at USC in 2005, Hyman has raised prices for football season tickets and restructured the giving levels in the Gamecock Club.
Asked whether he was reluctant to roll out the seating plan in the current economic climate, Hyman said: “Quite frankly, I didn’t want to introduce this ever.”
A committee that included Hyman as well as several trustees and Gamecock Club officials began studying the seating issue in April 2007. USC officials visited 14 schools with similar plans, including Clemson, Georgia Tech and several SEC rivals.
With Friday’s vote by USC trustees, Vanderbilt will be the lone SEC school that does not charge its fans a fee to buy football tickets.
“There’s no good time to do this. If (the team has a 10-2 record), I think the perspective of people (would be), ‘Now that you’re having success, you’re taking advantage of it.’ You’re 2-10, (fans would ask), ‘You’re not being very successful. Why are you doing it now?’” said Hyman, adding that LSU introduced its premium plan following back-to-back losing seasons.
“We’ve been working on this for a long time. And unfortunately, the economy is not in the best shape — let’s face it — around the country,” Hyman said. “But I can’t control that. Hopefully, maybe six months from now things will start to turn for us.”
The premiums closely resemble personal seat licenses (PSLs), a concept the Charlotte Panthers popularized in the early 1990s as a way to finance Bank of America Stadium.
But Hyman corrected a reporter Friday who mentioned PSLs.
“This is not reseating. It’s not a seat tax. It’s not a seat license. It’s a donation. It’s tax-deductible,” Hyman said. “On our committee, we had an expert tax consultant so he could tell us what we could do and not do. So this is a donation.”
The fee structure announced Friday will remain in effect through the 2011 season, at which point it will be re-evaluated.
As long as fans pay the fees designated for their section in the stadium, they will not lose their seats. No one will be required to raise their giving level to the Gamecock Club.
“This program is very unique in honoring loyalty,” said Bryan Risner, associate athletics director for development. “We’re allowing everyone to continue to maintain their seats.”
In conjunction with the seat-equity plan, USC unveiled a new slogan for its fundraising campaign, “The Garnet Way.”
Hyman encouraged fans to wear garnet to the Gamecocks’ Aug. 28 opener against N.C. State and introduced Tommy Suggs, the former USC quarterback and longtime color analyst, as chairman of the major-gifts division of the campaign.
Suggs commended Hyman for his “exhaustive” efforts in coming up with a plan that is fair to all fans.
“I’m comfortable in saying that,” Suggs said. “Is everybody going to be happy with it? Probably not. But I think in the whole process, I know a major priority was being fair.”
Hyman said when committee members first met, there was talk about trying to raise $15 million with the implementation of seat fees. Officials settled for half that total — revenue that will help USC pay for a number of facilities projects that are either under way or in the planning stages.
Work recently began on a $13.5 million academic center, while the riverfront baseball stadium is set to open next year. Hyman hopes soon to get the results of a feasibility study for a Williams-Brice expansion.
“Being in the SEC is good news, bad news. The good news is it’s the best league in the country. The bad news is it’s the best league in the country,” he said. “It’s not a league you can hold serve on. You’ve got to aggressively move forward. ...
“Facilities are an important part in the decision-making process. If they weren’t important, nobody else would be doing it. So to compete in this conference, we’ve got to be able to make that kind of presentation.”
Reach Person at (803) 771-8496.
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