South Carolina announces price increase for football season tickets

A South Carolina football season ticket will cost $50 more for the 2018 season, an average of $7 per home game.

The total price of a season ticket will go from $365 to $415. That’s an average price of about $60 per game, but each game is priced differently. SEC games against teams such as Georgia and Tennessee will cost more. Non-conference games against a team such as Chattanooga will cost less.

“The cost to compete and win at the highest levels has undoubtedly increased,” USC athletics director Ray Tanner said in a release. “The increases in football season ticket prices came after careful deliberation and discussion regarding the impact on our fans.”

It is USC’s first football season ticket price increase since 2013.

The Gamecocks football program ranked ninth in the SEC in football revenue according to the most recent U.S. Department of Education athletic filings for 2015-16. USC had football revenue of $59.62 million, with a profit of $29.6 million.

South Carolina’s athletics budget ranks 10th in the SEC with expenses increasing by 65 percent since 2010, according to the school. USC is one of 20 self-sustaining athletics programs in NCAA Division I.

Gamecock football season ticket prices ranked ninth among SEC teams this past season, USC said, and are expected to remain in the middle of the SEC in 2018.

“This additional revenue will help sustain the cost of attendance requirements for more than 500+ student-athletes, retain the tremendous coaches we have here, continue to build and maintain top-notch facilities and fund all of our athletic programs as we compete for SEC and national championships,” Tanner said.

Coach Will Muschamp’s football program finished 2017 with a 9-4 record, finishing second in the SEC East, and a 26-19 win against Michigan in the Outback Bowl.

Last year, South Carolina finished 19th among all NCAA Division I athletics departments in the Learfield Directors’ Cup Standings, recognizing total sports success --third highest in school history.

In the current academic year, 14 of South Carolina’s 19 athletic programs have been ranked in the Top 25 at one time or another, with 10 teams currently ranked.

“We’ve come a long way in the last eight years,” Tanner said. “Prior to this decade, we were finding our way in the SEC. Since 2010, we have achieved broad-based success in our athletics program.

“The successes that we have shared and the quality of the student-athlete experience here is in large part because of you - our fans. I believe the best is still yet to come.”

This story was originally published March 8, 2018 at 1:59 PM with the headline " South Carolina announces price increase for football season tickets."