Marshall's football season-ticket sales are down from last year, but that was to be expected - West Virginia is not on the home schedule.
Marshall's football season-ticket sales are down from last year, but that was to be expected - West Virginia is not on the home schedule.
A better benchmark for comparison is the 2006 season, in which the Thundering Herd sold a then-record 14,029 season tickets. On that account, sales are comparing favorably.
Early this week, Marshall had sold just less than 11,900 season tickets, according to Matt Monroe, assistant athletic director for ticketing. That's just short of the 2006 pace.
Neither Monroe nor anybody else expected MU to touch the 19,622 season tickets it sold last season. At this point last year, sales had blown past the 16,000 mark in anticipation of WVU's first visit to Huntington in more than 80 years.
Not only did MU sell nearly 20,000 full-season tickets, but it also sold 2,500 three-game packages. The Mountaineers had a direct and indirect impact on those sales, and it went beyond the record 40,383 fans who descended on Joan C. Edwards Stadium in September to watch the No. 3 team in the country.
"We sold 1,000 to 1,500 season tickets just to West Virginia fans," Monroe said. "The other big jump was our fans purchasing to watch that game, and football fans in general wanting to watch that game."
Monroe said about 55 percent of the 2007 season-ticket buyers renewed in the early renewal period, a level with which MU officials were pleased. Several hundred were new season-ticket buyers in 2007.
The Thundering Herd has a six-game home schedule this fall, beginning with the Aug. 30 opener against Illinois State. The big-name opponent this time is Cincinnati, which visits on a Friday night, Oct. 3, and the conference schedule gets an early start Sept. 13 against Memphis.
That obviously won't pack the drawing power of WVU, which isn't scheduled to return to Huntington until 2010. And the Herd's 3-9 season of 2007 may be dampening demand a bit.
But Monroe expects the on-field fortunes to improve, and he sees the Marshall-WVU series as having a lingering, positive effect.
"I'd like to have that impact be a couple thousand season tickets," he said. "To get where we were in 2006 and, hopefully, above that so we can increase our database."
Season tickets begin at $88 for end-zone seats. The west-side chairbacks are $579, which includes a $300 Big Green Scholarship Foundation donation, and the east-side seats near the 50-yard line are $229. Other price levels are $149, $179 and $204.
For more information, go to www.herdzone.com or call the ticket office at (800) THE-HERD.
To contact staff writer Doug Smock, use e-mail or call 348-5130.
Marshall's football season-ticket sales are down from last year, but that was to be expected - West Virginia is not on the home schedule.
A better benchmark for comparison is the 2006 season, in which the Thundering Herd sold a then-record 14,029 season tickets. On that account, sales are comparing favorably.
Early this week, Marshall had sold just less than 11,900 season tickets, according to Matt Monroe, assistant athletic director for ticketing. That's just short of the 2006 pace.
Neither Monroe nor anybody else expected MU to touch the 19,622 season tickets it sold last season. At this point last year, sales had blown past the 16,000 mark in anticipation of WVU's first visit to Huntington in more than 80 years.
Not only did MU sell nearly 20,000 full-season tickets, but it also sold 2,500 three-game packages. The Mountaineers had a direct and indirect impact on those sales, and it went beyond the record 40,383 fans who descended on Joan C. Edwards Stadium in September to watch the No. 3 team in the country.
"We sold 1,000 to 1,500 season tickets just to West Virginia fans," Monroe said. "The other big jump was our fans purchasing to watch that game, and football fans in general wanting to watch that game."
Monroe said about 55 percent of the 2007 season-ticket buyers renewed in the early renewal period, a level with which MU officials were pleased. Several hundred were new season-ticket buyers in 2007.
The Thundering Herd has a six-game home schedule this fall, beginning with the Aug. 30 opener against Illinois State. The big-name opponent this time is Cincinnati, which visits on a Friday night, Oct. 3, and the conference schedule gets an early start Sept. 13 against Memphis.
That obviously won't pack the drawing power of WVU, which isn't scheduled to return to Huntington until 2010. And the Herd's 3-9 season of 2007 may be dampening demand a bit.
But Monroe expects the on-field fortunes to improve, and he sees the Marshall-WVU series as having a lingering, positive effect.
"I'd like to have that impact be a couple thousand season tickets," he said. "To get where we were in 2006 and, hopefully, above that so we can increase our database."
Season tickets begin at $88 for end-zone seats. The west-side chairbacks are $579, which includes a $300 Big Green Scholarship Foundation donation, and the east-side seats near the 50-yard line are $229. Other price levels are $149, $179 and $204.
For more information, go to www.herdzone.com or call the ticket office at (800) THE-HERD.
To contact staff writer Doug Smock, use e-mail or call 348-5130.
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Sure we got the idea from the Southern Pa. Papermill, but if it puts butts in the seats who cares.
Thanks for the idea.