How has the addition of Daniels and positive recruiting affected WVU ticket sales? Here’s the answer
With the addition of JT Daniels, interest in WVU football is up.
Season ticket sales for the Mountaineers, however, is not. At least not at this point.
I wrote those two paragraphs back in 2017 for the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
Except the name in the first sentence was not JT Daniels, but Will Grier.
I bring it up because I reached out to Matt Wells, WVU’s executive senior associate athletic director, today about Mountaineer ticket sales.
Surely, I thought, sales have gone up considering coach Neal Brown signed ex-Georgia quarterback Daniels. There are also transfers incoming that seem legit as well as positive recruiting news.
But I guess I must learn. These days, moving the ticket needle is difficult.
“We’ve sold north of 18,000 paid so far,” Wells said. “That’s tracking very similar to 2019 and 2021. Obviously, 2020 isn’t a good comparison [because of Covid]. We anticipate we’ll end up fairly close to last year’s season ticket sales numbers when it’s all said and done in August.
“We anticipate continuing to see an increase in demand for our three-game mini packages and single-game tickets last this summer.”
The final season ticket sales number for WVU football last season was 22,812.
Nothing has changed, apparently, since the day when Grier transferred in. This is what Wells said at that time:
“It’s a lot different now than three or four, certainly five years ago. Fans have so many options available to them. Not just at WVU, but nationally fans aren’t as willing to make that investment for the full season, the six or seven games, when they know they can pick and choose two or three games and watch the other two or three from the comfort of home on a big screen or in a sports bar with friends. The market for season tickets – regardless of on-field success – is different now than it was even three to five years ago.”
Times certainly have changed.
The senior associate AD said, “with the current configuration of the stadium [the season high in ticket sales was] 38,191 in 2008.”
“In the old days, before the north end zone suites were built and those were bleacher seats, they sold more than 40,000. But our highest was [38,191].”
Now? It’s indeed tough to move that needle.
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Mitch Vingle covered sports in West Virginia for 38 years. Follow Mitch on Twitter at @MitchVingle and be sure to check out the rest of Wheelhouse Creative’s website for your marketing and advertising needs. If interested, call us at 304-905-6005.
