Many people have expressed negative opinions about the new surcharge on football season tickets. Some people have said the added fees are just another way for the athletics department to take away from the “little people.”
I have listened to some of the people who are against the surcharge, and sometimes these are the same people who were complaining four and five years ago when the football team finished with dismal records of 4-7 in 1998 and 3-8 in 1999.
It takes money to run a nationally respectable football team. It takes money for athletic trainers, doctors, equipment, coaches and various other things that contribute to an elite athletic program.
Many people question where the money is going and I will not pretend to know every expenditure made by the athletic department or the importance of each. The athletics department earns about $42,500,000 a year and obviously much of this is profit. However, I have done some research and discovered that there are several large bills that the athletics department has to pay in order to maintain operation, information the average person does not think about.
First of all, it costs the athletic department $50,000 a year for athletic tape alone. The department then pays another $50,000-$60,000 for prescription medications for sick or injured athletes. There’s approximately $50,000 a year for over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol and other items like Band-Aids that the training room must have in stock at all times.
The athletics department also pays $30,000 to $45,000 for game management. This includes paying for plumbers and trash pick-up. They pay overtime to police from the LSU Police Department as well as the Baton Rouge Police Department for each home game.
As far as the surcharge, I’ve been told that some of the money will go to repairing the PMAC. For this I’m glad. Anyone who has looked at the PMAC lately can see the terrible condition of the roof.
It is a shame that the tickets are so expensive. As a young girl it was a rare and special occasion when my mother could take my brother or me to an LSU football game because of the expense of the tickets. So I sympathize with those people who have been buying season tickets in the same section for literally decades and now worry they may soon have to give those seats up.
But it’s a trade off – pay less and have less funds circulating in the athletic budget or pay more and compete with other teams such as Florida, Alabama and Georgia. These teams all have a surcharge.
At the University of Georgia, season ticket holders “contribute” $200 a year on top of the $192 it costs them for season tickets. Georgia’s tickets are one of the most expensive in the conference, but who won the Southeastern Conference championship last year?
Coincidence? Maybe not.