There was considerable attention focused on the fact the ticket price was doubled for the recent Kansas-Kansas State women’s basketball game in Lawrence — from the usual $5 to $10, so we’re told. While that rubbed some folks the wrong way, it made others happy. They liked the idea that a lot of Wildcat fans had to travel and pay extra to watch their darlings wallop the villainous Jayhawks.
Best-case scenario, if some 4,000 KSU faithful paid extra, that could put another $20,000 in the local till, which needs all the help it can get.
Of course, $10 for a big-league sports event is cheap anymore. It costs something like $250 to $300 or more for a family of four to negotiate a pro football or basketball game, and can cost $120 or more for just four tickets to a Kansas football or men’s basketball contest. A $10 pasteboard doesn’t sound so oppressive. But the tendency of the suits-and-ties at all levels of athletics to jack up prices for high-profile games is disturbing. More on that later.
But before we get into the business of holdups and, in effect, blackmail in sports marketing, let’s drop back to the KU-KSU women’s basketball picture.
Kansas is struggling to get its program back to a solid competitive level in the Big 12 after a couple of weak years.
Kansas State is riding high. The Wildcat women seem to be NCAA Final Four material again this season. Could become the best team in the country. Crowds in Manhattan are running far beyond the turnouts for the men’s program. But is Kansas State’s women’s program turning a profit while the KU female venue isn’t?
For some time now, KU women’s basketball has been claiming about $1 million a year from the athletic budget while bringing in well under a six-figure total. Not too long ago, the annual red-ink report was about $950,000. Can even a KU resurgence change that drastically; will the women’s program always operate at a loss?
Football is the sugar cookie for the Wildcat sports program; the men’s basketball program there — once a massive source of pride — probably isn’t showing a profit right now. It would be interesting to know if the Wildcat women are bringing in more money than the male cagers or if the KSU females are also operating in the red.
An extra $20,000 or so can’t hurt anyone trying to balance books, but what are the financial situations for the women at KU and Kansas State, and can KU work up to the level of KSU women’s basketball while also battling to produce success in football?
Still with hucksters, a lot of people are perturbed and disturbed over how colleges are trying to boost their treasuries. It’s understandable that costs have soared, money is scarcer in a lot of categories and all sorts of creative but cold-blooded financing gimmicks are being contrived. Some say it has to happen, yet that surely doesn’t lessen the resentment some people right here in Lawrence feel about the ever-growing grab for the buck. How long before that boomerangs harmfully?
Case in point: One local acquaintance who has been a strong supporter of KU athletics for decades and has religiously made contributions and bought season tickets for football and basketball … he thinks he has been hosed, I’m inclined to agree.
The fellow got the notice to renew his KU basketball tickets for 2002-03. It was pointed out the deadline was July 31. He sent his check for something like $1,000 for two ducats on July 30 and figured the postmark would protect him — like the IRS does on April 15 tax bills. Forgot about it until he noted the ticket check was still outstanding. Called KU and they told him his check had arrived late and was being held but that he was out of luck on the ducats because he’d missed curfew. He pointed out the date on the check, and it was verified. The response amounted to something like, “Sorry, didn’t get it until Aug. 3.”
He took his case to a higher court, was assured he was a valued customer and that somebody would get back to him to set things straight. That happened, but the guy was told that since his tickets had officially lapsed, it would cost him something like $5,000 for each seat for a contribution for the Williams Fund, plus the $1,000 for the tickets, a total tab of $11,000 if he wanted to keep his old posterior placings.
In other words, if you have long-standing tickets and make all the deadlines, you’re OK; let the deadline pass and you pay high-roller loot to stay current. I’m not sure, but I think the guy I’m describing told them to forget both his football and basketball tickets, he’d make other plans for those days. How long before such shenanigans take a heavy toll in loyalty and devotion?
The wild thing is that somebody, considering the fever for KU basketball, probably jumped at that $11,000 tab and now holds the seats — like those which a lot of fans have held for years, through thick and through thin, win or lose, at great benefit to KU. Anyone really care anymore?
Reminds me of that old Marlon Brando scene in “The Godfather” where Don Corleone strokes his chin and mumbles, “Nothing personal, strictly business.”
If you ever had any faint idea it isn’t that way, talk to some of the people who’ve been displaced by eager dollar-crunchers.
