The Hawaii athletic department said it has heard the vocal concerns of its longtime football season-ticket holders and, as a result, will announce a new pricing structure for the 2014 season shortly.
Athletic director Ben Jay said the price of season tickets for renewals would not rise for at least one year, but that the cost for new season tickets would likely be hiked for 2014. Some prices for individual game tickets could also change.
The last time prices were raised in a majority of the areas at Aloha Stadium was 2004, UH said.
An announcement could come as soon as this week to coincide with the conclusion of the Rainbow Warriors’ spring practice. UH’s on-campus Spring Fling Game is Saturday. Renewal notices are scheduled to go out shortly, UH said.
UH is hoping that a strong early home schedule, featuring Pac-12 opponents Washington and Oregon State in the first two games, Aug. 30 and Sept. 6, will help boost crowds after three consecutive years of declining season-ticket sales.
The change in pricing philosophy follows strong feedback from season-ticket holders last year, when UH instituted its "Go Green, Save Green" discounted ticket program, Jay said.
Season-ticket slide
(UH football season-ticket sales)
| Year |
Season tickets |
Revenue |
| 2008 |
27,705 |
$3,517,353 |
| 2009 |
23,976 |
$3,113,402 |
| 2010 |
20,990 |
$2,761,611 |
| 2011 |
20,994 |
$2,757,692 |
| 2012 |
20,743 |
$2,722,190 |
| 2013 |
18,354 |
$2,416,358 |
Source: University of Hawaii |
Under the program, UH discounted sales of some individual game tickets as much as 50 percent in an attempt to shore up declining attendance in what became a 1-11 season. But Jay said longtime season-ticket holders told the department they felt they were losing value in their purchases.
"They asked me, ‘Hey, where is our value? We’ve been loyal to you for 20, 30 … 40 years,’ " Jay said.
Jay said he and his staff agreed to revisit the situation before sending out renewal notices this year.
"We wanted to see what we could do to give them better value for their loyalty," Jay said. "There’s a lot of imbalance in the way we’ve priced the stadium that never made sense to me, so one of the things we wanted to work on were the inequities in the current pricing structure."
Jay said, "I think our plan, when we announce it, will address that. I think it will show how much love we have for them."
Football season-ticket sales are a major source of income for the 21-team athletic department, accounting for about 71 percent of all football ticket revenue and, in a very good year, nearly 12 percent of department revenue overall.
But with three consecutive losing seasons, season-ticket sales fell to a decade low of 18,354 in 2013 and revenues to $2,416,358, a major contributor to the more than $1 million deficit the department says it is currently running.
Earlier this year Jay had investigated the possibility of closing the upper deck at Aloha Stadium for low turnout UH games. But that was abandoned since it would have displaced approximately 1,100 season-ticket holders who account for 3,225 seats.
"The overall goal is to make doubly sure we are valuing our season-ticket holders, the people who have stayed with us," Jay said.
