The buildout of the new University of Virginia football ops center took out 260 parking spaces in the adjacent parking lot.
It makes sense that the loss of parking spaces would drive up the price for the remaining spaces – that’s Economics 101, basic supply and demand.
But the price increases being floated by the Virginia Athletics Foundation, the fundraising arm of Virginia Athletics, for men’s basketball season-ticket holders who have and want to maintain their so-called “priority parking” spaces, seem to be a bit much.
We first reported last month on this, focusing on the email that a long-time hoops season-ticket holder, Jim Murphy, had received from the VAF informing him that if he wanted to maintain his priority parking permit for the 2024-2025 basketball season, “we would welcome your ongoing support of the VAF Annual Fund at the $1,750 Coaches Club level or higher this year.”
That email pinned the blame for the big increase in giving being asked on the reduction in the number of available parking spaces in the East and South parking lots in the stadium area resulting from the buildout of the new Football Operations Center, the Olympic Sports Complex and the Promenade, all part of the Virginia Athletics Master Plan.
“In an effort to minimize the loss of priority parking around JPJ Arena,” the email from the VAF related to Murphy, “the Virginia Athletics Foundation Board of Trustees voted to raise the minimum Annual Fund gift amount required to purchase a parking space.”
Nice wording there – “to minimize the loss of priority parking.”
It, rather, seems that the VAF is trying to sell people on the idea that its goal is to minimize the loss of revenue from losing several hundred spaces to the new construction.
Spoiler alert: that ain’t what’s going on here, either.
“Starting with the 2024-2025 season, all reserved parking lots — Garage, East, South, and West — will require a minimum VAF Annual Fund gift at the Coaches Club level ($1,750-$3,499),” the email continued. “VAF members at the Champions Club level ($25,000-$35,999) and above will remain eligible to purchase two parking spaces based on availability.”
It needs to be noted here that the increased gift doesn’t guarantee the donor a parking pass, just a chance at being able to purchase one – which, of course, means more money out of pocket, if you’re lucky enough to be given that opportunity.
Another long-time season-ticket holder, Wally Bunker, a retired journalist who lives in Culpeper, pointed out to me that even if the VAF doesn’t also pump up the cost of the actual parking passes, the current $300 parking pass fee, plus the cost of priority seating for two upper-level tickets coming in at about $1,140, and the new giving level, would push the bottom-line cost for season tickets, parking and donation for a casual fan to a minimum of $3,190, plus the so-called credit card convenience fees.
“We can’t forget those fees,” Bunker added.
We already know that Murphy has told us that he is going to find himself priced out of the market next year.
Bunker seems to be on the fence, though he made clear to me that parking is a big issue for him, particularly for weeknight games, given his hour-long commute back to Culpeper.
As it is now, Bunker often feels pressure to leave at the under-4 second-half media timeout to try to get out ahead of the postgame traffic, and that’s with a parking space within decent walking distance from the arena.
Bunker shared with us an email exchange that he had with the new VAF director, Kevin Miller, in which Miller spelled out the alternatives if Bunker were to decide against the bigger donation – the availability of single-game parking in the Emmett/Ivy garage that is technically walking distance, though maybe not if you’re a senior or have mobility issues, and parking at The Park, with a complimentary shuttle.
Neither are what most would call acceptable options for 17 gamedays.
As a cash grab, this parking thing would, on the surface, seem to be a drop in the bucket for VAF, which just participated in a photo op touting its $66.9 million contribution to Virginia Athletics in 2023.
I reached out to the foundation last week to try to find out how many season-ticket holders are going to be impacted by the higher donation threshold.
No response, which surprised me, and then, didn’t, because, think about it, not responding made it harder for me to write this follow-up.
Tired of waiting, left without concrete numbers, I’m reduced to having to guess.
Doing some basic math, even if it’s only 260 season-ticket holders impacted, 260 times the new minimum $1,750 Coaches Club contribution comes out to $455,000, a total equal to 0.7 percent of the total that VAF contributed to Virginia Athletics last year.
There’s your drop in the bucket.
But if it’s, say, a thousand, well, we’d be talking $1.75 million, 2.6 percent, more than a drop in the bucket – actually, a decent amount of water, pushing things in the direction of, we’re going to soon need a bigger bucket.
The fear related to losing some season-ticket holders due to the increases has to be weighed against the men’s basketball program having a healthy season-ticket waiting list.
That’s also Economics 101 supply and demand.
One other concept at play here: loyalty to the long-time fans, or lack thereof.
We’re talking about people, in a lot of cases, who have been around a lot longer than these salad days of the Tony Bennett era – and yes, for the newbies reading this, it wasn’t always this good, and buying season tickets and paying for parking when Dave Leitao was taking us to the CBI and Pete Gillen had that one good season was a commitment.
Think: UVA Football, in the here and now.
Money makes the world go ‘round, but it’s people who pony it up.
The Kevin Millers of the world who had it easy raising money down at Georgia would be well-advised to keep this in mind.
Share
Chris Graham
