New Stadium = 20,000 Plus Season Ticket Sales

MeanGreen61 · July 20, 2007

Season-ticket sales still short of UCF's goal

The Knights have sold a record 20,000 tickets but are still 4,300 off their mark.

Kyle Hightower | Sentinel Staff Writer

July 13, 2007

There's good news and bad news at UCF regarding football season-ticket sales.

The bad news is that despite a new stadium, the Knights still are about 4,300 tickets shy of their season-ticket goal of 25,000.

The good news is that sales have passed 20,000, meaning UCF has set a school record.

Last season UCF sold 15,244 season tickets, meaning this season's total is an increase of just over 5,000. In 2005, UCF had sold 9,872 season tickets.

Nearly 300 new season tickets have been sold in the past two weeks, and school officials are encouraged after selling out the section they had designated for full-time faculty members.

Last season UCF was fourth in Conference USA in season-ticket sales behind UTEP, Memphis and Southern Miss. The Miners and Tigers sold just over 21,000 apiece, and Southern Miss was just over 18,000.

UCF Athletic Director Keith Tribble said the goal is to be in a position to at least come close to sellout status (45,000) for each of the Knights' six home games in 2007.

"To reach this goal will speak volumes about the growth and outlook for the UCF football program in addition to shedding light on just how powerful our fan base can be," he said.

In addition to traditional advertising methods such as radio spots and billboards, the athletic department has turned to the Web for sales help.

This week, UCF unveiled a student-specific Web site -- Knighttickets.com -- that will allow students to purchase season tickets as well as put their name in a lottery for the individual-game allotment of 12,000 student tickets.

In other football-related news, Tribble told the Sentinel that despite a report in the Tampa Tribune last week, the UCF-USF series isn't necessarily dead after the last scheduled game in 2008.

C-USA won't force USF to play UCF -- or any other league team -- in 2009, which was part of the Bulls' exit agreement with the league when it left for the Big East.

"Although we are two years away, it is doubtful we would require a one-game series that wouldn't be returned," C-USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky told the Tribune.

But Tribble said UCF Executive Associate AD David Chambers has been in contact with USF to express UCF's interest in resuming the series in 2011.

"USF has indicated that they will take it under consideration," Tribble said.

Even with USF out of any immediate plans, Tribble said UCF's scheduling wouldn't take that much of a hit.

"Our scheduling philosophy does not change much as we continue to look at playing two opponents from BCS automatic-qualifier conferences and two opponents from non-automatic-qualifier conferences [each season]," he said.

Mean Green 93-98 · July 20, 2007

Season-ticket sales still short of UCF's goal
. . . sales have passed 20,000, meaning UCF has set a school record.
Last season UCF sold 15,244 season tickets, meaning this season's total is an increase of just over 5,000. In 2005, UCF had sold 9,872 season tickets.

That is a ridiculous rate of increase. I would love to see us do the same.

megagreen · July 20, 2007

Dell has already sponsored a stadium in Texas. The Round Rock Express plays AAA baseball at Dell Diamond. I guess it couldn't hurt to sponsor two, though. Look at American Airlines.