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No change for Georgia-Florida ticket prices; big change for Sanford Stadium video board

4:21 pm February 24, 2011, by Tim Tucker

(Updated 8 p.m.)

ATHENS — Ticket prices for the Georgia-Florida football game in Jacksonville will remain unchanged this year after UGA decided not to follow the Gators’ lead in raising them.

Florida’s athletics board voted in December to raise the prices by $10 per ticket, provided Georgia would go along. But Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity told the board of directors of the UGA Athletic Association at its winter meeting Thursday that he would not propose hiking prices for the 2011 game.

That means prices will remain the same as the past four years — $40 for regular seats and $70 for club seats.

“It takes two to tango, so to speak,” McGarity told the board, “and we’re not ready to make that move yet.”

McGarity said he would recommend, probably at the board’s May meeting, possible price increases for the game in 2012 and beyond.

“Sometimes it’s good timing for one school and bad timing for another school,” said McGarity, who worked at Florida for 18 years before becoming Georgia’s AD in August.

The timing for a price hike would be particularly bad for Georgia, coming off a 6-7 season and 18 losses in the past 21 games against the Gators. Georgia also won’t increase ticket prices for home games, McGarity said.

Several other matters were discussed and/or acted upon at Thursday’s meeting. Among them:

  • The board of directors voted to spend about $1.4 million to improve the Sanford Stadium video board to “HD quality.” The structure will remain its current size — 52 feet high by 76 feet wide — but will be retrofitted so that the full screen can be used for video display when desired. Currently, video is limited to a 25 feet by 46 feet screen, with the rest of the board used for scores, statistics, animations, etc. The upgrade, McGarity said, “is something you probably need to do every five or six years” because of the “staggering” speed of improvement in video technology. He said the project will be completed by Georgia’s home opener against South Carolina on Sept. 10.
  • The board approved issuing up to $69.5 million in bonds to restructure old debt and cover the $33 million cost of the recently completed expansion of Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall, Georgia’s football and athletic association headquarters building. Construction costs were paid from the association’s reserve funds, which will be replenished with bond proceeds. Board members attended a dedication ceremony for the expanded building after their meeting.
  • In response to last season’s noticeable number of empty seats in the student sections at Sanford Stadium, the board approved a new system of dealing with the 18,000 seats that go to students for each football game. If students with tickets don’t attend a game or designate their seats for use by another student or for sale to the general public, they’ll receive a “strike.” Three strikes in a season will make a student ineligible for tickets to a bowl game and the following season’s games. The plan was supported by student leaders.
  • UGA President Michael Adams told the board the athletics department soon will get an outside review of NCAA compliance issues, as SEC schools do on a rotating basis. “We have right now too much non-compliance in the SEC, and we have too many rumors of non-compliance,” Adams said. “As much as I hate to get beat, I would rather get beat and be in compliance. . . . To have an outside group come in and make sure we are doing everything we can to ensure [compliance] is something this board ought to be thankful for.”
  • Faculty athletics representative David Shipley reported the grade point average of UGA men’s and women’s student-athletes declined in the fall semester from the previous spring. The women averaged 3.06 and the men 2.74 in the fall, both down .08 from the spring. “We are not happy with that slippage,” Shipley said.

– Tim Tucker, AJC

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82 comments Add your comment

ATLSN

February 25th, 2011
9:47 am

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studawg

February 25th, 2011
9:59 am

I thought the reason there are so many empty seats in the student section is because they are general admission tix and the students all pile in the lower deck instead of going up. Correct????

‘We made a mistake’ by benching Rocky, UGA’s McGarity says | UGA sports blog

February 25th, 2011
10:02 am

[...] now that that’s settled, click here for the rest of the news from Thursday’s Athletic Board [...]

FIRE RICHT

February 25th, 2011
10:24 am

“Georgia Saturdays…built Ford tough.” You know what ‘Ford’ stands for?
FIX-OR-REPAIR-DAILY..similar to UGA football. Still can’t believe 6 points were scored with A.J. Green on the field, & had a month to prepare for the bowl game. “Failing to prepare is preparing to FAIL.”-Jim Harrick

Bazooka Joe

February 25th, 2011
10:33 am

Slobberknocker – I hear ya about the early start times…. the problem is when we dont have a good record the prior year, we are given the noon/1pm time slots and the Bama’s, LSU’s/UF’s get the 3:30 and 7 games. Given our record last year I am afraid we are in for a lot of noon kickoffs again this year. Cant really blame them… the way to get off these early start times is to win.

AltamahaDawg

February 25th, 2011
10:38 am

Do freinds really need to discuss if they want to go to the game on Saturday? seriously? Any student that wants to be at the game, Is at the game. Period. Your point IS the very reason that they do ration the student tickets…….there are student that will always go, some that don’t. If you have to be asked by your pal to sit right next to him before deciding that, I’d say they have the allocation just about right.

AltamahaDawg

February 25th, 2011
10:41 am

BTW, I’ve done the math and posted it a couple of times, proving that the allocation is spot on for student tickets.

CHEAP.edu

February 25th, 2011
10:55 am

Red River Shootout: Face value is $110.

$40 or even $50 per seat is bargain basement.

Enjoy.

Brenda

February 25th, 2011
11:24 am

How about if we penalize those alumni/season ticket holders who don’t show up for games or who sell their tickets every week — sometimes to folks from the “enemy”!!!! I have seats in front of me in section 331, 4 of them, which are sold EVERY game, along with a parking pass. Big games fetch up to $1000 for the tickets/parking. Make a section just for those non-fans who use their tickets for giveaways and promos. Leave the prime seats to those of us who have paid lots of $ for lots of years!!

icedawg

February 25th, 2011
11:26 am

Harold from UT. “All UT needs now is a head coach that can win.” That’s a bit askew. Rather what UT really needs is a team that can win.

AltamahaDawg

February 25th, 2011
11:48 am

Brenda, didn’t the season ticket holders in front of you pay just as much as you did?

Keith

February 25th, 2011
11:51 am

Don’t they call in the Georgia-Florida game because G comes before F in the alphabet?

AltamahaDawg

February 25th, 2011
12:44 pm

I understand that the noon kickoffs were not entirely imposed by the TV networks. There even being a noon timeslot is due to the TV schedule, but UGA did have some say so and let it be known that they prefer the earlier games rather than later when it was an option. CBS obviously doesn’t call and ask if you want their 3:30 games.

Hey MCDAVIDASTRO

February 25th, 2011
12:50 pm

Looks like we wont be seeing you for a while..but dont worry, no one will notice you are gone and no one will care. In fact, please stay away we have enough fair weather fans as it is..

UGASlobberknocker

February 25th, 2011
12:52 pm

Anytime a season ticket holder sells his tickets to “the enemy” in my section..we let the season ticket holder know about lour displeasure it in full throat when they return.It usually doesn’t happen more than once.

Chuck

February 25th, 2011
2:59 pm

The student policy is still way too lenient. Two strikes and the student loses their tickets would be better. I have a son at UGA and the dirty little secret is that the foreign students buy the tickets with no intention of every going to the games. They just get caught up in buying whatever they are requested to buy. This is really a problem because most freshman only get half a season or 3 game tickets so the extra tickets should go to them.

Aaron

February 25th, 2011
3:59 pm

Jimbo is absolutely right. Even when you have a ticket, if you don’t have the proper new format ID, you can’t come in. They have made it work to have fun. It was a blast sitting with the students back in the 90’s when Georgia wans’t even very good; now all I hear about are the complaints, and UGA is better now.. you would think it would be more fun to go to a game.

They are just looking for excuses to limit the tickets from 18K to 15K to eventualy 10K, so they can get more revenue from alumni and non students. Makes you wonder what the 350 something athletic fee every semester was for, when you can’t even get a ticket. They forget, that these games used to be for the students at one point.. now, more than ever, it’s about revenue.

Back in the 90’s you got a booklet of all 6 home games for 12 bucks! $2 each, no hassle.. sit where you wanted.. general admission (within the student section), now you may have to sit next to a Frat boy (not bad, unless you are not in a frat) or the physics major (nothing wrong with that.. just not my idea of a good footabll time), etc. I suppose this new system could allow you to meet new people, and make neew contacts..

But hey.. you want to go to the game with your closest friends, and sit with them.. is there anything wrong with that? Why not just watch the game at the hotel.. better view of the game, and no restrictions on food and drinks or company. I don’t know why they go out of their way to limit students from having a good time… they earned it through tuition and putting up with all of the other senseless regulations of the University.

77DAWG

February 25th, 2011
4:04 pm

You got to be kidding, Nay Land stadium looks more like a big pile of steel and you call pretty?

Drink it Up

February 25th, 2011
6:51 pm

Our frat doesn’t get over to the game until late first quarter for most games—too much partying going on at the house with the young sorority ladies!!! Plus, most of the games are boring anyway and only get good in the second half.

UGAjrStudent

February 25th, 2011
7:20 pm

The new idea/measure for dealing with student tickets is even worse than before. While I would like and think that every student should be able and should go to every game, to punish students who may have bought tickets who are unable to attend is crazy. When I heard that there were to be changes to the student ticket policies, I was hoping that it would somehow be for the better–change of block locations, distribution policies, exchanges policies–but I guess I should have known better; after all, Michael “tradition-killer” Adams is still the president.

–Dr. Adams, creating more ways in which you can punish students in relation to football season and game days does nothing for the program or the University.

Alum&SeasonTixHolder

February 25th, 2011
11:23 pm

UGAjrStudent: what’s more important than going to a Dawgs game that you are worried about missing THREE games?!

AltamahaDawg

February 26th, 2011
8:31 am

Aw shoot, you mean a fellow has to present some sort of card to get into a major sporting event, for practically nothing? how outrageous!

This is the system that SC uses, and I have always thought it was smart. As has been pointed out, its the fans that use thier allocation with no intentions of going that is the problem. I mean really UGAjr? you but tickets and just happen to “be unable to go” to 3/6 of them, and restricting you in the future is just Adams way of punishing loyal students?……………good lordy. How about this….go to the game. And you have the chance to convert them to another student if you can’t go which doesn’t count against you does it?

I hear a few students whine in here, but it always seems to me they aren’t so concerned about lifting a finger to make sure thier unused tickets get used by thier poor fellow students “standing out on the bridge suffering the wrath of the big bad money grubbing alum”.

Any student that wants to be in the game is IN the game.

Jay Sulkowsky

February 26th, 2011
10:23 am

To the west endzone fans….bring a mirror. To the rest of us…..how about a petition or something to get the fill in mascot back on the field? So what if he has a little brown, still a great looking bulldog and looks the role a lot more than the first UGA who was thinner and taller and really didn’t look like this type of bulldog. Finally to the diehards let’s dye the dogs coat if need be!

Scott

February 26th, 2011
12:07 pm

Instead of spending 1.4 million on score boards Ga should focus first on putting a quality football team on the field .

AltamahaDawg

February 26th, 2011
12:53 pm

Can’t they do both, Scott?

AltamahaDawg

February 26th, 2011
1:10 pm

How does knowing which students did attend serve as a practice of discouraging students to attend Jimbo? That doesn’t even make sense. Were you trying to attend in secret or something?

Wouldn’t that seem to be the exact opposite, a policy to INCOURAGE student attendance?

I would think the students would be applauding this. Allocating more tickets to those who intend on using them. That would seem to be a great thing.

BO-BO witch hunt

February 26th, 2011
5:07 pm

There’s petition going around online, about firing Mike Bobo need 10,000 signature please help…..

AltamahaDawg

February 26th, 2011
9:49 pm

Firing the OC in March?

Down South Dawg

February 27th, 2011
11:41 am

McDavid; Fair enough!—You being somewhere else will make room for a UGA supporter who knows what a good program is all about and who dosen’t go around “badmouthing” one of the very best coaches that has ever led the Dawgs football team. I’m sure you can find some other venue on Saturday afternoons where you can display all of your wisdom and enthusiasm.

Jaxdawg10

February 27th, 2011
8:55 pm

Maybe some students have other obligations that keep them from attending all of the games. Such as a job! Since they can’t sell or give their tickets away due to the new ID system, how are they expected to handle this? Not get tickets to any of the games? Doesn’t seem reational.

nerds! nerds! nerds!

February 28th, 2011
2:05 pm

Here is how you fix the student ticket “problem.” Go to a physical ticket. I know alot of losers will get tix just to sell them, but a half full student section looks really sad. It worked when I was studying there.

Dealing with no-show students - HawkeyeNation Forum

March 1st, 2011
6:03 pm

[...] [...]

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