Ohio State fans celebrate in the first half of the Fiesta Bowl against Clemson on Dec. 28, 2019. Ohio State lost 29-23. Credit: Casey Cascaldo | Managing Editor for Multimedia
As capacity in Ohio Stadium has decreased in past years, Ohio State’s athletic department is looking to increase season-ticket holding opportunities with a modernized model.
Beginning with the 2022 football season, season tickets will be divided into six pricing zones — with a required per-seat contribution ranging from $0 to $1,500 in addition to ticket pricing — that correspond to different sections inside the stadium. Although allowing nearly one-third of season-ticket holders to pay less than they did before, Gene Smith, Ohio State’s director of athletics, said the decision aims to increase the Buckeye Club’s revenue — which goes toward funding student-athlete scholarships.
Pricing and per-seat contributions will vary between public, faculty and staff, Varsity O, and recent graduates season ticket holders, according to the athletics website.
“[Ohio Stadium] requires us to look at our fanbase differently, look at our demographics differently, and ultimately, that’s where we landed with this modernization plan with six price zones,” Smith said. “There’s no question that this is a revenue opportunity — we need to grow our annual giving program.”
Of the six pricing zones, Zone 6 will be the only zone exempt of paying a per-seat contribution but will be located in less desirable seating areas.
In 2019, there were 49,729 season tickets — 6,385 of which fell within sections inside Ohio Stadium designated for Zone 6.
Although about 10 percent of season ticket holders were grandfathered into season tickets from long-time holders, associate athletic director for ticketing and premium seating Brett Scarbrough said that era of season ticket holding is coming to a close.
“There are some of them that are already in Zone 6 so it’s not going to affect them, now granted anybody that’s not in Zone 6, yeah, they are going to have an incremental amount that they’re going to owe,” Scarbrough said.
Another 10 percent of season ticket holders are members of the President’s Club — a donor organization for academic pursuits at Ohio State. In the past, President’s Club members were not required to make a contribution to the athletic department, but in the new model they will be required to pay the per-seat contribution in Zones 1-5.
In terms of seasonal parking passes, the per-seat contribution or Buckeye Club priority point level will be used in the parking selection process. There will be three parking lot tiers: Premier, Proximity and Non-Proximity.
Premier provides the closest spots to the stadium, but require at least $6,000 in contributions to the Buckeye Club, while the Proximity tier branches a bit further away from the stadium but only requires $5,000 in contributions. The Non-Proximity tier is the furthest away from the stadium and requires $3,000 in donations to the Buckeye Club.
Despite the many changes to the season ticket model, student season tickets will be unaffected by the modernization. Students will not be required to pay a per-seat contribution and ticket prices will remain fixed at $34 per game.
Students normally take up about 28,000 seats in terms of season ticket holdings, a number that Scarbrough said will remain unaffected by the changes to the model.
“Obviously, the environment is best when we maximize the number of students that are there,” Scarbrough said. “We’re not looking at peeling back that number significantly. We take a lot of pride in providing the most tickets to students of probably any of our peers.”
The Buckeye Club, the annual giving program for the Department of Athletics, contributed nearly $14 million of the $29 million provided by the Ohio State athletics department to grant-aid costs of student-athletes.
Jordan Birkemeier, associate athletic director of annual giving and the Buckeye Club, said the expectation is for the new model to provide $4 million to $5 million in additional revenue in its first season of implementation.
Although Smith said the Department of Athletics is budgeting an $5 million for fiscal year 2023 — the inaugural year of the modified plan — he said further projections will need to follow gathering of more data.
“We did not forecast out increases each year after that,” Smith said. “We need to go through some learning in order to do that.”
Acknowledging that the new model will be met with mixed reactions, Scarbrough said customer service lines for the ticket office and the Buckeye Club will be open for anyone with questions.
Smith said the model was not a reaction to the projected $60 million to $70 million deficit the Department of Athletics will take on.
“Before the pandemic hit, we were moving in this direction,” Smith said. “Frankly, we may have implemented it in ’21 as opposed to ’22 had the pandemic not hit, so we pushed everything back.”
The Board of Trustees approved the model Thursday.
This story was updated Thursday at 1:17 p.m. with information that the Board of Trustees passed the model.
