Pro tip: if you want a ticket for the Virginia-Florida State game Friday night, bypass the dummkopfs at VirginiaSports.com, and go straight to the resellers.
The official ticketing site is still trying to make you pay up to $146.00 per for the 500 level, and the get-in price is $64.50.
Meanwhile, a scan of the resale sites tells us you can get in the door for under $50 for two tickets, including fees, and you can sit lower level with a seatmate for as little as $94, again, including fees.
ICYMI
I was thisclose to writing an article last week to praise the efforts of the folks at UVA Athletics to address the empty-seat problem, and then they go and do something stupid like this, and totally redeem themselves.
Who I feel the worst for here: Tony Elliott, his staff and, most to the point, the kids.
“Man, truthfully, every week, I’m dreaming and hoping for a full stadium, you know, capacity stadium, packed, loud, man, aggressive, putting pressure on opposing teams,” a wistful Elliott told reporters at his weekly presser on Tuesday.
The announced crowd for the Week 1 win over Coastal Carolina was 46,143; Week 3, with William & Mary, drew a reported 38,512; and then Week 4, Stanford, the ACC opener, had 36,223.
The capacity at Scott Stadium is 61,500, and we’ve had 64,000 in the house – that was way back in 2008, for the season opener with Southern Cal.
The reported attendance – I use the word “reported” for a reason – through three games is 65.5 percent of capacity.
The low prices on the resale sites suggest to us that we’re going to see swaths of Scott with fans disguised as empty seats, which is unfortunate.
Would it help if UVA Athletics was more focused on getting butts in seats than trying to extort as much from those thinking about braving the traffic on a Friday night as they can?
It couldn’t hurt.
The last time we were even close to having 60,000 in the house was in 2019, for a night game against, yep, Florida State.
Virginia won that one, 31-24, before an announced crowd of 57,826.
It was, to callback to Elliott’s “dreaming and hoping,” pretty cool to be in a stadium with that many people, that much energy.
“Every time I run out the tunnel, man, I’m expecting to see, you know, a full stadium, and I understand we got to do our part and we’re working towards it, but I anticipate there’ll be a good crowd,” Elliott said on Tuesday.
“At the end of the day, we can’t focus on that. We got to focus on the product that we put on the field. And I think the guys have done a really good job of just having a workman-like mentality and showing up and going to work regardless of how many people are in the stands.
“But man, I’m dreaming,” Elliott said. “And I think what we want, in the end, it’s going to take all of us, it’s going to take the relationships and everybody doing their part. And a big part of helping a football team maintain its edge and ability to perform at a high level is knowing that you’re running out to a full stadium.”
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Chris Graham
