Large sections of vacant metal bleachers and gold chairback seats have been a common sight in Tiger Stadium this football season. A monsoon-type downpour before the Fresno State University game, an 11:30 a.m. kickoff against Mississippi State University and a 36-point average margin of victory at home have all contributed to the obvious absence of fans at several home games. The sparse crowds so far in 2006 have caused some financial disappointments for the LSU Athletic Department, but Associate Athletics Director Mark Ewing said the effects of the smaller crowds do not pose any threat to the department. The biggest hit taken with lower-attended games is concession stand sales. Ewing estimated that per-game concession stand figures can be estimated by multiplying between $5 and $6 per fan in the stadium. “Weather-wise we’ve been OK besides Fresno State,” Ewing said. “That was the worse one we had [this season], and the worse one I’ve seen in a long time.” At any particular game Ewing said concession sales bring in between $400,000 and $600,000. But at the Fresno State game, concession sales fell to between $200,000 and $300,000. “Naturally it affected us…probably up to the tune of a couple of hundred thousand dollars more in sales we would have had it wouldn’t have been bad weather,” Ewing said. “Stuff like that is going to happen every year, and you’ve got to be ready for it.” Herb Vincent, LSU senior associate athletics director, said the tell-tale sign for a successful football season can be judged by the end of June when season-ticket holders must pay for their tickets and Tradition Fund dues. The Tradition Fund is a contribution that season-ticket holders make to reserve the right to their seats in Tiger Stadium. For example, the 2005 season brought in $19.6 million in football ticket sales combined with an additional $9.3 million in Tradition Fund revenue. Vincent said a season could be doomed if “you have a poor season where people don’t buy tickets for the next year.” Scheduling rotation in the Southeastern Conference also has an effect on revenues. “The way it’s worked the last few years is that every other year we have a bunch of marquis games, and every other year we don’t,” Vincent said. “But there’s nothing happening this football season that’s going to cause us to be any worse financially than we thought we were going into this year.” The Tigers are scheduled to host teams such as Virginia Tech University, Auburn University and the universities of South Carolina and Florida in the 2007 season. Vincent also said those monetary shortfalls can be made up in the final home game against Ole Miss, and other sports like men’s and women’s basketball can help make up the difference. Saturday’s home game against the University of Alabama personified a more typical LSU home game – a crowd of more than 90,000 fans packed into Tiger Stadium for a night game following an entire day of tailgating around campus. Ewing said concession sales fell between the normal $400,000 and $600,000 per-game range for the Alabama game but noted that sales probably were closer to $400,000 simply because of the cooler weather. “The crowd was bigger than the last few games, and I think it reflected in the sales,” he said. “I think there will be a pretty big crowd this weekend being the last game for a bunch of seniors, and it’s not on TV.”
—–Contact Kyle Whitfield at [email protected]