The University of Mississippi Athletics
STAFF BLOG: Russell On Bowl Tickets
12/14/2009 | Athletics
The Ole Miss athletics department's senior staff and leadership publish blogs on OleMissSports.com to offer fans added insight into the overall operation of the department. Sans Russell is in his 18th year with the athletics department and serves as the Assistant Athletics Director for Ticket Operations.
December 14, 2009
Ole Miss athletics wants to thank everyone who has supported the football program this year by purchasing Cotton Bowl tickets from our athletics ticket office. As of today, we still have about 400 of the $250 club tickets available for sale. We sold all 11,600 of the $100 tickets very quickly, and I would estimate that we could have sold around 18,000 if they had been available. Unfortunately, we had to remove the bowl orders of the lower two levels of UMAA Foundation football membership due to a lack of tickets. We also could not fill any orders for any non-members who were season ticket holders. The new Cowboys Stadium seating capacity is only about 71,000 compared to last years venue which seated over 88,000. This 17,000 seat reduction greatly reduced the number of tickets that both of the participating schools had to sell for the 2010 AT&T Cotton Bowl.
We will finish pulling all of the orders by Tuesday, and they will be sent out by FedEx by the end of business on December 15. If you ordered parking passes, they will also be in the package along with your bowl guide. This year, over 60 percent of the $100 tickets we received were located in the 400 level and in the endzone seating area. Foundation members at the Scholarship level and above were allocated in the 300 level and below in the corner of the endzone. Over 37 percent of our $100 tickets were located in the corner of the endzone. A large number of the Varsity members were allocated in the 300 level and the rest were placed in the 400 level. All Victory level membership and below were placed in the 400 level of seating and the endzone. All of the $250 club tickets were located in the 300 level and below. Children one and under are admitted free.
Regardless of your seating location, your view of the game will be greatly enhanced by the huge video screen located over the field. It is 60 yards long and nine building stories high. It is a high definition screen. You will probably find yourself watching it more than the actual game itself. The stadium is located in Arlington about 20-25 minutes from downtown Dallas. There is a Six Flags theme park located very near to the stadium, which I am told will be open the week of the game.
I would encourage you to be at the stadium three hours before kickoff. The exterior gates will open at 10 a.m. This outdoor patio/party area has big screens, bands and numerous vendors and concession areas for you to enjoy prior to the opening of the stadium itself at 11 a.m. Look over your bowl guides closely when it arrives with your tickets to learn more about Cowboys Stadium.
Visit the OleMissSports.com ticket office to order Cotton Bowl club level tickets or call 662-915-7167.
October 6, 2009
Can you believe it? For the first time in Ole Miss Football history, Rebel fans have bought all of the tickets that can be sold as season seats. That's right, we sold out of season tickets! The ticket for Coach Houston Nutt's second season has proven to be a much desired commodity by the Rebel followers. The only tickets that are left for sale at this point are some individual game tickets for the two remaining non-conference games. So, if you got shut out on the season tickets, be sure and get your tickets for these two games.
No one anticipated this huge surge in season ticket sales. Unfortunately, a consequence of this was a large number of customers who had ordered individual SEC game tickets were not able to receive those tickets. While unfortunate, it is a part of the growing support of the Rebel football program. In order to avoid this issue for the 2010 season, we will not offer individual game SEC tickets for sale until some point in the late summer. This will give us time to determine if there is going to be any availability. If sales for the 2010 season match the 2009 season, obviously there will not be any individual game reserved seats offered for sale. What a good problem to have!
We are going to sell standing room tickets for all of the remaining SEC games for $55 each. These tickets entitle the holder to enter the game at gate 20 only and to stand at the top of the South or East stands. The Alabama allotment has already been sold out. Allotments for the remaining four games will be sold beginning two weeks prior to those games. These tickets will be scanned for authenticity at gate 20, in order to prevent counterfeiting. You should only buy these tickets from the Ole Miss ticket office. Avoid all third party sales.
As you attend future Rebel sporting events, please be aware of the items you can and cannot bring into those venues. Visit OleMissSports.com and review the gameday rules (football) before you come to an event if you have any questions about policies. It has always been a rule that everyone entering a ticketing venue must have a ticket, and this rule is being strictly enforced at all Rebel sporting events this year. Be aware of this as you attempt to enter these events.
Basketball renewal forms were mailed out in September, and hopefully everyone has sent those back. A change to note for women's basketball games is that all seating will be general admission. You can sit in the floor seating for the women's games if you are a season ticket holder. Please get those forms back in to us immediately. Men's seating rules are the same as last year.
The UMAA Foundation has already sent out the renewal information for all of the box and club seating areas for the 2010 baseball season. Their return deadline is December 8 for the required donation. Included in your per seat donation requirements for these seating areas is the ticket cost, which they will forward to the ticket office.
All season tickets in the baseball grandstand areas sections A - O must be renewed directly to the Ole Miss ticket office at a cost of $125 per ticket. A donation of $75 per seat is necessary in order to retain your seating in sections D-L. Be on the lookout for your renewal form for these areas to come out in December. The ticket office renewal deadline will be January 8, 2010.
April 23, 2009
Ole Miss Baseball season tickets went very well this season with over 4,600 reserved season tickets being sold and over 500 Oakes Pavilion (outfield general admission) season tickets sold. The remaining reserved seats for the Georgia and Mississippi State series are selling very fast at $8 for grandstand, $18 for box and $8 general admission tickets for the Oakes Pavilion. We will be sending out information for ordering tickets to a potential home Regional and Super Regional tournament in May to all baseball season ticket holders. Timing will be important with this, so return your order as soon as possible. We do sell ticket books to the SEC Baseball Tournament as well. If interested, just call our office or go to the OleMissSports.com ticket office.
As I sit writing this blog, the telephones are ringing constantly with customers ordering football tickets. The Rebels have an exciting home schedule with several potential sellout games on the verge of occurring as we get nearer to the season. Football order forms have been out for several weeks now, and there is tremendous support for Coach Nutt's 2009 Rebel team. Order your season tickets now, and don't be shut out for the big games. If you have been a season ticket holder in past years but were not in 2008, you will be hearing from my office very soon with a special season package we have designed just for you. We are calling it the "WE WANT YOU BACK" campaign. If you are a returning season ticket holder, remember the renewal deadline is April 30 to retain your priority.
One change that we are working on for this fall is to reinstate the use of barcoded tickets for the South Club, Rebel Club, South Suites and the West Skyboxes. Scanning at the gates gives us much better access control over those areas. It also will give you the opportunity to transfer your tickets online to someone else if you cannot use them. All other areas of the stadium will continue to have regular tickets without the barcoding. If you have changed your mailing address recently, please let us know so that we can have anything you order from the ticket office sent to the proper address.
Student season football tickets will go on sale in August. The exact date has not been set yet, but as soon as it is we will post it here on OleMissSports.com. We allocate 7,500 tickets for the students and we always sell out. If you are a student, be sure and get yours early in the process to ensure your seat.
Due to the current economic hard times, we are taking steps to lower our overhead in every area we can identify. One of the biggest expenses my office has is for the payment of credit card fees on ticket orders. Last year, the cost was over $180,000 for this expense. We pay anywhere from 1.9 to 2.4 percent on every credit card order that is processed. Help us out if you can by paying with a check when at all possible. You can also pay with ACH (automatic bank draft) by giving us your bank's nine-digit bank routing number and your checking account number.
Also, if you need extra time to pay for your tickets, we are now offering a deferred payment plan. Equal installments will be deducted each month until August 1, when your final payment will be processed in time for your season tickets to be mailed. If we receive your order before April 30 and you choose this plan, we will waive the $10 deferred payment processing fee if you pay by ACH.
Tickets can be ordered online 24 hours a day at OleMissSports.com. You can also call us at 1-888-732-8587 or drop by the office at the Tad Smith Coliseum. Our mailing address is P. O. Box 247, University, MS 38677. Thanks for supporting the Rebels by buying tickets, and let us know anytime we can help you with any of your ticketing needs.
September 30, 2008
The 2008-09 Ole Miss athletics year is already in full swing. Season ticket sales for football were strong this year, and with Saturday's momentous upset, individual game tickets should be at a premium for the remaining games. Men's and women's basketball order forms have been sent out and should be returned by Friday, October 3, and season baseball renewal forms will go out near the end of football season.
Our goal is to make it as simple as possible for you to order and get the tickets you want for all of our ticketed sporting events. You can purchase football, basketball and baseball tickets by going to the OleMissSports.com online ticket office, by calling the ticket office at 1-888-732-8587, by dropping by the Tad Smith Coliseum ticket office, or finally by just returning your season renewal form by mail to us. We still have tickets available for all the remaining home football games, so get your order in now for the game of your choice. Remember that the gates open for football games two hours prior to kickoff, so arrive early and avoid the lines near game time. You can purchase football tickets on gameday at the ticket office located by the street near the north endzone. It will open 2 ½ hours prior to game time.
Tickets for soccer, volleyball and softball can be purchased at the venues on gameday, and all seating is general admission at those sites. Prices are $5 for adults and $3 for children, and we begin selling tickets one hour prior to game time. Concessions are available for all three sports.
Our regular office hours are 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Ticket windows are open from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. Please let us know if there is ever anything we can try to do to enhance your gameday experience.
April 24, 2008
Spring is my favorite time of the year. We are finally not freezing to death at the baseball games. In my last blog, I talked about generalities of the ticket office's functions and hours. I want to get more specific with you this time and talk about two things that we get a lot of questions about - attendance figures and football away game allocations.
Attendance figures at home events where tickets are sold are arrived at in a consistent manner each time. We calculate these by first taking the number of season tickets that have been issued for each sport in question. Then we add to that all tickets sold on an individual basis leading up to the event. We then add to that all working gameday personnel, press and team participants to get our attendance figure for the day. In the case of baseball, we also estimate the number of students and the crowd outside the third baseline fencing to get our figure. Obviously, the figure we use for attendance in some cases is far above the actual number of person's at the game. Now you know why. This is very important when we are compared with other school's attendance figures for national rankings. The majority of schools with Division I sports programs calculate their figures in the same manner.
The second hot topic that I am always asked about is away football game ticket allocations. First of all, you have to realize that the goal of the other team is generally to give us the worst tickets that they can while splitting them up so that we have no large groups of fans in any one location. I look at the sections of seats that we receive from each school and determine what the priority seats are. After determining this, I run lists of UMAA Foundation donors by club level and within that list by number of points they have. The persons in the higher giving levels are allocated first, then the next level and so on down the rankings until no one is left but ticket purchasers who are not UMAA Foundation members. It is a numbers game, so when I run out of lower level seats, I have to go to the upper levels and use those. I apologize to those of you who end up there, but unfortunately, that is what we end up with from many of the schools. We generally call people who say they do not want upper deck seating and 95 percent of those people end up taking it anyway. They just want to see the Rebels play. I hope that answers a few of the questions you might have.
