With no marketing, Tickets sales still bit down

[NewsCopy]

Now that the University of Louisiana has solidified its football schedule, its next order of business is selling tickets for the upcoming season. And interim athletic director David Walker's most recent check of ticket renewals wasn't a rosy picture. "They haven't been going as quickly as we would have thought," Walker said Wednesday. "Coming off a conference title and winning the last five games, and having six home games and another game at LSU, we thought we'd be further along than we are." UL won a share of the Sun Belt Conference title in 2005 and finished with a 6-5 mark, its first winning record in a decade. The Ragin' Cajuns also return 16 starters from that squad. Season tickets have been on sale since late March for previous season ticket holders, and are now on sale to the general public with all tickets not reclaimed by last year's ticket holders available for sale. Tickets for the six home games are $115 per seat for chairback seating, an area which also requires a $100 priority seat donation. Lower-deck reserved seats adjacent to the chairbacks are $97 and require a $50 priority seat donation. Seats not requiring priority donations including lower deck non-priority seats at $97 and upper deck reserved seats at $73. The rest of the story Dan McDonald dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com

[Hammer58]

Gee, no attempts made to market the season tickets or the program and they are surprised by the lack of sales!

[KACajun]

Gee, no attempts made to market the season tickets or the program and they are surprised by the lack of sales!

great point

[CajunConnection]

Gee, no attempts made to market the season tickets or the program and they are surprised by the lack of sales!

I would have thought that sales would be going good, but have to agree with the lack of marketing the product. I have seen nothing.

Of course if the Cajuns can pull an upset in the first two games, ticket sales for the first game will be thru the roof.

CC

[CajunKahouna]

Gee, no attempts made to market the season tickets or the program and they are surprised by the lack of sales!

It is all part of our out-of-date, out-of-touch University leadership!

[Digger]

Gee, no attempts made to market the season tickets or the program and they are surprised by the lack of sales!

Given the miniscule athletic budget that UL has to work with are we certain that the university has money for marketing the football program?

Now it seems to me since the target area for tickets sales will be Lafayette proper and the Acadiana area the local media, primarly radio and TV, can assist the university in getting the word out regarding ticket availability.

Kpel, who holds the contract for broadcasting UL athletics events, could put together radio spots promoting football ticket sales. Copies of the promo's could be made available to all radio stations in the acadiana area. I would wager that stations would run the spots. Tv promo's could be put together in the same manner.

I would suspect that if Kpel and the other stations ran such spots during am and pm drive time ticket sales would improve.

Marketing should be thought of as a community activity not just a university function. Afterall, if 30,000 attend the games it's the local business establishments who benifit.

[Membertou]

KPEL did that for baseball last winter, and it helped sales.

[BirdofParadise]

KPEL did that for baseball last winter, and it helped sales.

And, we'll be doing it again this year as well. Probably starting in July.

Last year we donated over 70,000 worth of airtime for UL season tickets in various sports.

I think right now, the lack of renewals is what is of concern.

[CDeb]

I would have thought that sales would be going good, but have to agree with the lack of marketing the product. I have seen nothing.

Of course if the Cajuns can pull an upset in the first two games, ticket sales for the first game will be thru the roof.

CC

Third game of the season is a little late to start pushing season tickets....

[Membertou]

And, we'll be doing it again this year as well. Probably starting in July.

Last year we donated over 70,000 worth of airtime for UL season tickets in various sports.

I think right now, the lack of renewals is what is of concern.

And we thank you for your efforts.

[Digger]

And, we'll be doing it again this year as well. Probably starting in July.

Last year we donated over 70,000 worth of airtime for UL season tickets in various sports.

I think right now, the lack of renewals is what is of concern.

I am sure that the university appreciates your efforts in promoting ticket sales last year (70,000 in all sports).

You mentioned renewals as being a concern. Again, with the pace of life today, people need to be reminded that it's time to renew their tickets for the 2006 season. What better way than to have Kpel to promote renewal of season tickets.

Since Kpel is the home station for cajun athletics.. will your ticket promo's run on all of your stations or just your sports outlet? Also, could your station send copies of the promo that you develop to all other stations in the acadiana area, since your signal is limited to the Lafayette and surrounding area?

[Hammer58]

Given the miniscule athletic budget that UL has to work with are we certain that the university has money for marketing the football program?

Now it seems to me since the target area for tickets sales will be Lafayette proper and the Acadiana area the local media, primarly radio and TV, can assist the university in getting the word out regarding ticket availability.

Kpel, who holds the contract for broadcasting UL athletics events, could put together radio spots promoting football ticket sales. Copies of the promo's could be made available to all radio stations in the acadiana area. I would wager that stations would run the spots. Tv promo's could be put together in the same manner.

I would suspect that if Kpel and the other stations ran such spots during am and pm drive time ticket sales would improve.

Marketing should be thought of as a community activity not just a university function. Afterall, if 30,000 attend the games it's the local business establishments who benifit.

I understand we are not going to have a huge budget, but at least run some radio ads or newspaper ads. Hell, get the AD, SId or someone in the athletic department to do an interview on KPEL and in th ecourse of that interview push the importance of season tickets. Instead our admin seems to think that they should just sit back and wait for people to come to them for season tickets. Kind of like the attitude they have about fundraising.