Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Three Feet High and Risin' | by Jay

As we mentioned below, rumor has it the ticket application fee (read: mandatory donation) will double to $200 for next year. Young alums & seniors will go to $100 (from $50). Supposedly the last fee increase was 14 years ago.

Sorin Society membership will go to $1500 (last increase for Sorin was reportedly over 20 years ago).

I suppose the application fee increase is overdue, and expected. Tacked onto the quickly-rising cost of tickets, however, the new fee structure just makes going to a game that much more expensive.

Pat and I ran down some old ticket prices. In 1951, the cost of a home game ticket was $4.80. Ten years later in 1961, the price had gone up 20 cents, to five bucks. Since then, we've seen a fairly steady rate of increase in the price of tickets, around 5%-6% per year.

However, from 2002-2004, that rate roughly doubled, and prices went from $38 in 2001 to $53 in 2004.



What happened in '01 that set off the price hike? For one thing, Kevin White had just come on board...