University of Wisconsin Athletic Board members pushed back on the UW athletic department's desire to eliminate a cap on student season ticket prices before next season.
As reported by Todd Milewski of the Wisconsin State Journal, members of the board's Finance, Facilities and Operations committee were successful during a special meeting Monday in retaining a clause in the season ticket pricing policy that limits how much the athletic department can charge UW students.
University of Wisconsin Athletic Board members pushed back on the UW athletic department's desire to eliminate a cap on student season ticket prices before next season.
As reported by Todd Milewski of the Wisconsin State Journal, members of the board's Finance, Facilities and Operations committee were successful during a special meeting Monday in retaining a clause in the season ticket pricing policy that limits how much the athletic department can charge UW students.
Athletic department chief financial officer Adam Barnes had asked the committee to remove language that held student season ticket prices to half the cost of the lowest price for adult season tickets.
Instead, the committee voted to change the limit from 50% of the lowest cost to 100%, keeping a constraint in place but allowing for a price increase. The full Athletic Board approved the change at its meeting Wednesday.
Wisconsin announced last month a decrease in the lowest price of men's basketball season tickets for general seating — many of the seats in the upper level — from $23 per game to $19 as part of a pricing overhaul. Under the policy then in place, the cost of student season tickets would have had to fall to $9.50.
Per Milewski's reporting, the athletic department wants to do a full analysis of student pricing for multiple sports, but high demand for those tickets makes it unlikely that the end result would be a lower cost. Student season tickets in men's basketball and football sell out quickly, according to Barnes.
"Pricing strategy across our different sports and venues over time may continue to warrant our evaluation of pricing of all products," Barnes said. "As we've proven both at Camp Randall and the Kohl Center, there are times that we need to pull some pricing and products down. And then, obviously, there are other products that we're adjusting the other way."
Wisconsin wanted to be able to evaluate student prices using the same three criteria set in 2023, when the Athletic Board relinquished approval powers over every pricing change: costs at other Big Ten schools, what fans have paid on primary and secondary markets and inflation, Milewski reported, adding that a fourth point of the policy was holding student season ticket prices to no higher than 50% of the lowest undiscounted adult ticket price for each sport.
Board members voiced concerns about pricing students out of events..
"Is there any kind of brakes to put on upward inflation there or some kind of replacement for (policy No.) 4 that would signal that we're considering that fact that they're student prices?" asked board chair Doug McLeod, a journalism professor.
Said Ralph Grunewald, an associate professor in the Department of English, "I think we should have some clause that shows that we have our students in mind. I see athletics as a business. I get that. I'm fully supportive of that. At the same time, we might have to think about maybe moving revenue streams in a way that we keep our students somewhat protected."
As reported by Milewski, Barnes said there had been internal discussion in the athletic department about asking for the change in policy to be what the committee ended up with: keeping a limit but having it be the same as the lowest adult price.
Dan Kelly, and alumni representative on the board, said a policy holding student prices to no higher than the lowest adult price was "a good limiter, a good governor."
"If we need to go over that, then that is a board discussion," he added, as reported by Milewski. "Absent that wording on there, there's going to be all sorts of rampant speculation as to what could happen. And we do not really want that."
