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Morris: Fan will not sit still over USC fees
George Lee stands in front of Williams-Brice Stadium, where he has attended nearly every USC football game in the past 50 years. Lee, a lifetime Gamecock Club member, is suing the school, saying he should not have to pay a seat-licensing fee for season tickets.
Gerry Melendez/gmelendez@thestate.com
Posted on 01.25.09
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George Lee admits to a lifelong love affair with the University of South Carolina and its athletics program. He treasures the memory of his father carting him along to men’s basketball games at the Carolina Fieldhouse. He has not missed many home football games in the past half-century. He is a graduate of the USC Law School.
So it pains Lee greatly that he has sued the USC athletics department.
“I went to great lengths to avoid this,” Lee says. “I made every effort not to do so.”
Lee’s recently filed suit stems from his Lifetime Membership status in the Gamecock Club. He is among about 230 USC fans who purchased lifetime memberships in 1990. Under that contract with the Gamecock Club, Lee claims he never should be required to pay the annual seat-license fee USC will implement beginning with the upcoming baseball and football seasons.
Eric Hyman, USC’s athletics director, says he will not comment on litigation involving his department. Lee says members of Hyman’s staff and the Gamecock Club have made it clear that USC’s stance is simple: The seat-license fee applies to all members, including those with lifetime status.
“I’m standing alone,” Lee says of the suit he filed more than a week ago. “My stance is, purely, a contract is a contract. I entered into this thing in good faith 18 years ago, and I expect them to honor the contract.”
USC has instituted a new fee for season-ticket holders called the Yearly Equitable Seating program in football and baseball. Hyman and his staff members insist this fee — on top of the cost of the season tickets — is a “donation.”
Don’t kid yourself. The charge amounts to a seat-license fee, one that originated in the NFL and has carried over to college sports. Most major-college football programs with large booster organizations have seat-license fees, which assure the ticket holder of having the same seat location from year to year.
Clemson instituted its seat-license fee a year ago and encountered approximately 700 IPTAY members who had purchased lifetime memberships as far back as the early 1980s. Under the IPTAY plan, a member could attain lifetime status if he or she paid $35,000 to the club over a five-year period.
With that lifetime status, an IPTAY member had the right to purchase up to six season football tickets every year. There were other perks that went along with the deal, but nowhere in the contract did it say members would have to adhere to additional costs, such as a seat-license fee.
In the early stages of dealing with the seat-license fee, Clemson officials assessed how it should affect lifetime members. They determined lifetime members were immune to the seat-license fee, except for tickets purchased beyond the limit specified in their contract.
“We felt a deal was a deal,” says Bill D’Andrea, a Clemson senior associate athletics director, “and we should honor that.”
Clemson did some simple math to figure it was dealing with a maximum of 4,200 football seats that would not carry a seat-license fee in a stadium that seats 82,000.
Lee hoped USC would take the same high road with its lifetime members. He was among approximately 230 who purchased the lifetime deals in 1990.
USC’s lifetime plan differed from Clemson’s. Under USC’s, a lifetime member could make either a $40,000 or $25,000 one-time gift to the Gamecock Club, or purchase either a $200,000 or $100,000 life-insurance policy. The policy will be cashed by the Gamecock Club at the death of the member, meaning USC stands to gain more than $20 million.
Lee, a 51-year-old real-estate broker in Columbia, purchased a $100,000 policy. Under the agreement, Lee paid the policy’s premium until the cash value reached a level at which the interest would pay the premium. After eight years, Lee stopped paying the premium and kept his lifetime membership by paying the Gamecock Club $500 every year since.
Under terms of the lifetime membership, Lee has the right to purchase up to eight season football tickets, four season basketball tickets, a reserved football parking pass, a reserved basketball parking pass if available, the opportunity to leave the tickets to one designated heir, and tickets to any other USC athletic event.
Nowhere in his contract does it state Lee must adhere to additional fees imposed by the Gamecock Club. Upon hearing of the proposed seat-license fee, Lee says he repeatedly offered to meet with either a member of the Gamecock Club or the USC athletics department to discuss his concerns about the additional fee.
According to Lee, USC granted one meeting and informed him it planned to apply the seat-license fee to all lifetime members. Lee offered to hire an independent judge to read all documents presented from both sides and determine whether the fee should be charged to lifetime members. USC declined.
Finally, Lee applied to purchase six baseball season tickets in the new stadium. He wrote a check to USC for $1,268 for the season tickets and sent along a letter stating that as a lifetime Gamecock Club member he should not have to pay the additional $300 seat-license fee. Lee received a letter from USC saying he has a $300 balance on his baseball tickets account.
Lee believes USC officials never took his threat of a lawsuit seriously, and that is part of the reason he reluctantly has followed through with legal action. In his suit, Lee is not asking for money from USC. He also plans to pay all attorney fees.
“This is not about money,” Lee says. “This is about right and wrong.”
Even if USC is legally correct in applying the seat-license fee to lifetime members, this seems like an instance when the athletics department could take the path of least resistance and avoid the public-relations nightmare that is likely to follow.
In the case of football season tickets, USC is talking about waiving the fee for a maximum of 1,840 seats in an 80,000-seat stadium. That seems a small loss for the big gain USC would make in fostering a lifetime of good will among its most loyal fans.
Listen to Morris Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m. on ESPN Radio 93.1 FM
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