University of Nebraska athletics director Troy Dannen said Friday that "legacy seating" will be eliminated and all season-ticket holders will be required to pay the same donation and ticket prices, regardless of when their tickets were acquired.
The move will come close to servicing the debt on Nebraska's recently announced $600 million renovation of Memorial Stadium, Dannen said.
"Honestly, if every seat paid its donation this year, it's over $21 million of revenue," Dannen told reporters, according to Aaron Hagerty of ABC affiliate KETV in Omaha. "And when you look at how the stadium is going to finance itself, that will more or less pay the debt service that we will take. So when I talk about the stadium growing by revenue of 40%, most of it is capturing revenue that just is not captured in the stadium right now."
Dannen said 40% of Memorial Stadium seats are currently considered legacy seating, and just like today, 25% of season tickets will not require a donation. He said keeping affordable options has been a focus.
He said the least-expensive season tickets in the new stadium will be "in the low 200s." That's different than today, Dannen said, where the season tickets are more than $400 each across the stadium, but the donation levels are different.
As reported by Hagerty, the lower two levels of the new south end zone seating will be reserved for students, which will also impact season-ticket holders.
Dannen said he understands many fans are wondering, "What about me?" But he says Nebraska Athletics doesn't have all the answers yet.
"It's going to be months," he said, as reported by KETV. "I don't want to tell anybody and then change our minds, but we've got to get through more of the construction design before we know exactly."
