Alright, so, I just gave UVA Football fans hell because I’m hearing from the folks in the ticket office that we may be playing the biggest game ever played in Scott Stadium with 10,000 or more empty seats.
Flip side: Carla Williams, Kevin Miller, others in the inner circle: seriously, $146 to $186 for upper-level seats?
“I would love to get my ass out there and yell my fool head off, and I know plenty of others who do as well,” reader and UVA fan Todd Wielar wrote to me in an email.
“Your ‘hot take’ is grossly out of touch with the reality of the current economic climate. Perhaps write an article about the surge-pricing UVA is charging for this game,” Wielar wrote.
ICYMI
Hot take, grrr.
I don’t do hot takes.
I reported to y’all that we’re going to have a sea of empties.
Now I’m writing about why.
That’s how this works.
“Tony wants fans at the game? Tell him to talk to the powers-that-be and make tickets affordable. $744. Plus food,” Wielar wrote.
Message: sent.
Coach Elliott: time to make some phone calls.
“I read your article on slow ticket sales, and just looked at the UVa Football ticket page. Upper-deck seats for the game are $146-$186. Add in fees and maybe a hotdog, and the game is well over $300 for a couple to attend. That in itself might be a reason for lagging sales,” reader and Wahoo fan Dave Krovetz emailed.
“Add in that the program is likely sending the football team to Brazil for a game next season, and it feels like the athletic department puts money over loyalty to fans. You reap what you sow,” Krovetz wrote.
I’ve been the point guy on that one, about Brazil.
Both are obscene money-grabs – charging $146 to $186 per ticket for tickets that were priced too high at $50 apiece earlier in the year, and then using the lagging attendance that the surge-pricing as justification for taking another home game from us next year.
On top of the prices, I’ve gotten several emails noting the bitter cold temperatures in the forecast for the 7 p.m. kickoff – AccuWeather has us at 32 degrees at kickoff, and 28 in the 10 p.m. hour, as the game is into the fourth quarter.
The ACC and ESPN, in their infinite wisdom, set the game for a late kickoff for TV, to cap the day-long drama of who will fight it out next week in Charlotte for the automatic berth in the College Football Playoff.
They don’t care about the people at the game, who are just props in the background of their TV set.
Who are being asked to take out a loan for the privilege.
My first story on this was an attempt to get butts in seats.
What I’m been efforting at here now is: getting the people running the show to come to their senses, so we can achieve Goal #1.
It will be utterly embarrassing to play this game in front of 10,000 empty seats in the upper deck because y’all thought you could fleece us for another $1.5 million.
Those empties are going to cost UVA Athletics many multiples of that $1.5 million in bad PR.
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Chris Graham
