IU increases 2013 football student ticket prices

IU has raised the price of football student tickets for the first time in 15 years.

Ticket costs for the 2013 season will increase to $10 per game and $80 for the eight-game package, up from $5 per ticket and $30 overall in 2012.

Men’s basketball ticket prices will remain stable at $15 per game and $240 overall for tickets to 16 home games, but they can only be purchased through a combination package with football tickets via OneStart or the IU Ticket Office.

The football and basketball package will cost $320 for students, a combined increase of $2.08 per ticket from the 2012-13 academic year.

“There’s a lot of demand for us to generate the revenue it takes to operate a big program like ours,” Deputy Director of Athletics Scott Dolson said. “But we want to try to balance that with keeping it affordable and making certain that we get as many students to as many games as possible.”

The $5 increase in ticket prices marks the first price change for student football tickets since 2009, when they were lowered to the $5 mark. In the 2008 season, tickets were $10 each in a season package but were $15 for single-game purchases.

Football ticket prices, however, had been falling or have been stable each year since 1998. In 2003, for example, single-game prices for students were at $20 for nonconference opponents and $25 for Big Ten foes.

The 2013 increase in costs coincides with last year’s three-win increase for the football program, as well as its highest-ranked recruiting class ever set to join the team this fall.

Instead of raising men’s basketball prices, which have remained at $15 per ticket since 2006, IU chose to raise football prices because it “felt like the right time to do so in relation to the marketplace,” Dolson said.

“Looking at where the demand has been, where the program is headed and where the rest of the Big Ten is, as we discussed it, it felt like it was the right time to tick them up,” Dolson said. “In still staying low in the Big Ten, we feel like we are very competitive and are definitely the best value in the conference.”

In relation to Big Ten schools that have released 2013 student football ticket prices, IU remains the lowest in cost despite its price increase. Illinois has the second-lowest cost at $99 for a season package.

Dolson also said that the athletic department will re-evaluate ticket costs on a year-by-year basis.

“We feel real comfortable in the marketplace but are trying to drive attendance at the same time, because we need to produce as much revenue as possible to balance the costs out,” he said. “Our sales and attendance last year were at a high watermark for us in the modern era for both football and basketball. We feel like we are trending in the right direction in both areas.”

— Jordan Littman