With tough economic conditions gripping the state, Iowa’s athletics department will not raise season-ticket prices for the upcoming 2009 football season, Athletics Director Gary Barta said Tuesday.
Iowa also will allow season-ticket buyers to pay for the tickets in three installments this year, rather than one lump sum. The first installment is due upon receipt; the second is due May 26 and the third June 23.
“We’re going to be experiencing budget cuts so the temptation after a successful year in football would be to want to raise one of your revenue sources, one of your largest revenue sources, and that’s football,” Barta said. “On the other hand, our fans, the state is going through challenging economic times. We made the decision, we’re going to tighten our belt, we’ve got cuts in our budget that we’re going to have to make, and we’re going to hold the line on season tickets this year.”
Public season tickets will cost $339, while UI student tickets cost $154. UI faculty and staff tickets will cost $275. Ticket orders begin Monday, and 2008 season-ticket holder have until May 1 to retain their seat location and place their order.
Barta said the economy was the primary reason to hold the line on season-ticket prices. But Iowa will raise single-game tickets for its seven home games this year. Iowa lists its homecoming game against Michigan as a premium game, with single-game tickets costing $70. Iowa’s non-conference game against Arizona also is considered a premium game at $65 a single-game ticket.
For Iowa’s other five home games, prices were raised $2 to $52. That includes games against Northern Iowa, Minnesota, Arkansas State, Northwestern and Indiana.
“I don’t think anybody has to do a survey in this environment to understand that the economy is difficult,” Barta said. “And what we want to do is in the long run we want our fans to continue to fill Kinnick and be excited about Hawkeye football. So we just made the decision this is the right thing to do in a very difficult year, and it’s going to come at some expense to our own program.
“We’re going to have to go through the budget cuts but we were probably going to have to go through that whether we raise ticket prices or not.”
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