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UT season ticket holders are losing ground

by Tony Basilio

A new season ticket policy enacted by the University of Tennessee brass caused a stir among UT football fans recently, raising the hackles not only of the rank-and-file denizens of Neyland Stadium, but of a couple of state legislators as well.

A caller to my radio program last week offered the following summation of the university sports administration’s latest folly: “They (UT) are a bunch of glorified crack dealers, and we are a bunch of addicts. The only way out of this deal is death or rehab. Another season or two like the last couple we’ve had and I’m heading to Betty Ford.”

The trouble started when new UT Athletics Director Mike Hamilton decided to, shall we say, “re-appropriate” a portion of the grandfathered season ticket seats in Neyland Stadium. Some families have retained season ticket rights on choice sideline seats for literally generations—a fact that stands as an affront to the big-money donors who now hold the majority of the seats in those sections. Sources say that Hamilton and others in the UT athletic department were pressured to correct this deplorable state of affairs that had unwashed rabble sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the dues-paying Big Orange elite.

In a letter dated April 6, 2004, Hamilton informed several hundred fans that they would have to pay for the right to keep premium seats, or else be relegated to nosebleed sections in the end zone. A portion of the letter follows:

Beginning with the 2004 season, individuals with grandfathered season tickets on the sidelines may retain a maximum of two sideline non-donation (grandfathered) seats. All other sideline seats will require a minimum annual per-seat contribution...

Individual grandfathered season ticket holders who do not choose to join the VASF (Volunteer Athletic Scholarship Fund) will be able to retain the option to purchase the same number of season tickets that they currently have without a required donation. These season tickets will be reassigned to the best available seating in the north and south end zones. Effective with the 2006 football season all sideline seats will require a minimum contribution...

In the two weeks since the letter’s release, Big Orange Hell has broken loose. This has been a public relations gaffe worthy even of our imperious former Athletic Director Doug Dickey.

Irate fans have flooded call-in shows and Internet chat sites with expressions of their displeasure; that was expected. What UT didn’t expect was State Senator Tim Burchett’s involvement. Burchett recently fired off a letter of outrage to mid-state Democratic Senator Jerry Cooper, co-chairman of the state’s Fiscal Review Committee. In doing so, he may have fanned a spark into an inferno, a controversy that may only be silenced when the university opens its books and justifies this change in ticket policy to the folks in Nashville.

“UT’s athletic department can talk all they want about being self-supporting, but they are a part of the University, which is a land-grant institution,” Burchett said. “They are gouging hard-working people and won’t be happy until all the tickets in Neyland Stadium are gobbled up by fat cats and corporations. This isn’t right.”

Cooper likewise took a shot, invoking comparisons to another recent scandal that UT administrators are at great pains to put behind them. “I want to remind folks that this is how the Shumaker investigation started, with Tim getting me a letter,” Cooper said. “We are serious about looking into this. Besides, shouldn’t Tennessee win a bowl game before they start talking about raising ticket prices?” Ouch.

The most intriguing part of all this is that the decision only affects a couple of thousand out of more than 30,000 grandfathered tickets (i.e. season tickets not currently tied to donations). If administrators had foreseen the PR thrashing they were about to take, they would have been well advised to go ahead and take all of the grandfathered tickets in one fell swoop. Having failed to do so only delays the inevitable; the universities in Florida, Georgia and Alabama did away with grandfathered tickets more than a decade ago. Even the University of Kentucky—yes, that University of Kentucky—appropriated the last of its grandfathered seats this past winter.

In other words, the handwriting is on the wall, and it’s doubtful that Sens. Burchett and Cooper will succeed in getting Hamilton to reverse the decision. But the damage in the court of public opinion is done, and will only be compounded by the fact that there are more than 28,000 grandfathered tickets remaining that UT will surely seize when the need arises for further “adjustments” in ticket allocations.

Tune in and talk sports with “The Tony Basilio Show” each weekday from 3-6 p.m. on the network (670 WMTY-AM, 850 WKVL-AM, 1140 WLOD-AM, 1290 WATO-AM, or 1400 WGAP-AM)

April 22, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 17 © 2004 Metro Pulse