 "Photo:")
"For this entire basketball season, we have instituted what we call a donor-based seating policy," said Steve Novak, associate director of the Flynn Fund. "For individuals who have season tickets in the lower part of the arena, the red-backed seats, we have asked them to make a gift to the Flynn Fund to help support student-athletes and scholarship costs."
Previously, the athletic department allowed season ticket owners to hold the same seats so long as they continually renewed the tickets every year and made payments on time. The old policy has stood since the days of Conte Forum's predecessor - the Roberts Center. The new policy grows out of hopes to increase revenue for the Flynn Fund, by tapping those alumni and other faithful fans who are passionate about BC sports.
"This doesn't apply to only alumni. This is [for] alumni, parents, friends, anyone who has season tickets with Boston College men's basketball," said Novak.
Despite the new rules for tickets, BC Athletics has promised previous season ticket-holders not making a donation that they may still receive seating within Conte - though it may be less desirable.
"Each and every season ticket-holder who chose not to make a contribution still retained seating. They worked with directly with Jim O'Neill [associate director of athletics] to move to another area of the arena that did not require a contribution," said Novak.
Thus far for the 2006-2007 season, the ticket office has sold a total of 34,000 season ticket packages for football and 7,500 packages for basketball. Even with the change, this year more than 80 percent of season tickets were renewed - it is the highest renewal rate in the past few years. Athletics chose to begin the new policy with basketball season due to the consistently high demand for tickets demonstrated over the years, and because the policy had been successfully practiced for a number of years at other schools.
"Our season ticket-holders seemed to have embraced this with an open mind. That's not to say there weren't a few unhappy ticket-holders," said Novak.
BC alumnae Anne Kennefick is one those fans in disagreement with the policy change. "It creates more of a homogenous area of seating, with big donors grouped together. The school promotes diversity, but this new policy doesn't reflect. It also contradicts the Catholic tradition of giving without worrying about receiving in return," she said.
Despite disgruntled fans, the athletics department felt the change was necessary. "We're actually one the last schools in the country to implement such a policy," said Jamie Diloreto, assistant athletic director of sports marketing.
"We were the only school in the ACC that did not have a donor-based seating. In the Big East, all but two schools had this policy for basketball," said Novak. "This is commonplace around the country."
Diloreto also said the change was not a result of the school's move into the ACC.
The athletics department actually started planning for this new policy two years ago and, with the early success of the basketball season, is now looking to potentially implement this policy for football and hockey as well, said Diloreto.
Athletics has also experienced a shift with the tailgating policy. Two years ago, tailgating had been limited to two hours. Last year, that limit had been extended by a half hour. For the 2006-2007 season, the department worked with the city of Boston to allow for a three-hour tailgating limit before any football game.
"We [allowed] people with on-campus parking permits to access campus three hours prior to kick off. Parking passes are allocated to season ticket-holders who are Flynn Fund donors at a certain level. We communicate that to our season ticket-holders a number of ways through out the year," said Novak.
Although there is no direct correlation between the new ticket purchasing and tailgating, Novak said should a football season ticket holder make a donation to the Flynn Fund in order to receive a pass for tailgating, the ticketing office will take this into account when purchasing basketball tickets.
For future alumni, Novak said, "nothing has really changed in the opportunity to purchase tickets." Recent alumni still can purchase public season tickets for events such as football and hockey. For basketball, the competitiveness for season tickets makes it difficult for anyone to receive a package, said Novak.
"We've been sold out on a season basis for basketball since the year prior to joining the ACC. That hasn't allowed anybody new to come into fold for season tickets. It has nothing to do with the donor-based seating aspect; it just has to do with the availability question," said Jim O'Neill, associate athletic director of ticket operations.
With this new change for ticket purchasing, BC Athletics hopes to establish an even greater incentive for donating to the Flynn Fund and believes the majority of the BC community has thus far reacted in a positive light.
As Novak said, "If you're a season ticket-holder, you have an invested interest in the BC sporting program."
Be the first to comment on this article!