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A ketchup Popsicle to a woman in white gloves?
Lol. This JP worship is getting hilarious, especially since we're just coming off a couple of our worst sports years in decades. I think I'll wait until Greg and Gene actually accomplish something before I elevate JP to king of the world status.
Looks like the demand was there for the higher priced sections. Seems that many people were choosing to give higher donations but forced to seat in lower donation areas because of demand. So the people who had been grandfathered in on the cheap have to pay more or move. Kind of nice that it might open things up for some who have been willing to pay but have been forced into poorer seats.
he is doing what nearly every other BCS school has already done and he is doing it in almost the identical way they have done it.
People need to relax a little bit, things are going in the right direction. Here is Pollard's response in wondering if renewals are going well and if there wasn't as much interest with the donation upgrades, since there has been no hype/thermometer updates to get people fired up.
Dear Dave,
Good to hear from you. I am down at the Final Four in Texas. Great games yesterday. The final on Monday should be a track meet.
I appreciate your concern about ticket sales. No need to worry. Keep in mind because of the anticipated movement in seats due to the donation changes, we actually backed up the "deadline" date from last year by 7 weeks. We fully plan to start showing the ticket thermometer again once we get through renewals. Last year we started showing it in late February because the deadline was in February. So far sales look really good. I know as of three weeks ago we actually had processed over 500 new season ticket orders. The fact of the matter is there are plenty of people who want the seats vacated by those that do not want to pay the higher donation prices.
For example, we have already sold 512 of the new $1,500 club seats - we only have 30 seats left. We have sold all the suites except 2 and we have two companies very interested in those two. We have also have increased the number of Directors level donors (keep in mind that annual level went from $10,000 to $12,500 this year) from 75 last year to 90 and counting this year.
I do appreciate your concern for those that may give up their seats and we are sensitive to that. My message to those folks is 1) it will never get less expensive in the future and 2) when Chizik wins they will wish they never gave up their seats.
Thanks for getting the extra tables for the trivia night. It should be fun. See you in a couple of weeks.
Jamie Pollard
Director of Athletics
Iowa State University
1800 South 4th Street
Jacobson Athletic Building
Ames, IA 50011-1140
515-294-0123 (office)
515-294-0104 (fax)
[email protected]
I like what he is doing (focusing on raising more funds and looking to invest in facility upgrades for our programs) but it is not like he is re-inventing the wheel here...he is doing what nearly every other BCS school has already done and he is doing it in almost the identical way they have done it. His letter is not "selling" anything, it is just stating what would appear to be common sense to most of us (why let our ticket holders keep their seats for $100 donation per year when you can sell those seats to others that are willing to pay $500 or more in a donation each year)...while giving the $100 donor the chance to either donate more and keep his seat or keep his donation where it is and move to a different seat.
Having said that, his success will be contingent upon the success of Chizik and McDermott...especially Chizik. It is much easier to bump these donation levels and ticket prices up when you are coming off a 9-3 season as opposed to a 3-9 season. In order to keep the momentum going we need to see some big strides in FB this year. I believe Chizik was a superb hire but he needs to start putting some skins on the wall sooner rather than later. I think most of us also thought McDermott was a pretty good hire (I know I did) but after year two the seeds of doubt are starting to surface for some of us...he also needs to make some big strides next year.
The people who said JP had no experience in football or basketball forgot that Bo Ryan reported to him at Wisconsin and so did women's hoops.
He also ran the Camp Randall removation project.
A little experience there I'd say.
18 days and still no thermometer. What's the deal?
I read on myspace that they are doing a hand recount, because the forms were confusing...
Who cares? I don't.