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Florida State 'modernizes' its ticket priority policy in five sports

Florida State University announced plans to modify its existing ticket priority policy for the sports of football, men’s and women’s basketball, soccer and softball beginning with the 2023-24 athletic season.

Florida State’s ticket priority policy was first implemented in 1977 and has been modified four times over the years, most recently in 2018.

When Vice President and Athletic Director Michael Alford became Florida State’s Director of Athletics, he initiated a two-year study of priority policies at peer institutions across the Southeast, in both the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference.

Based on that study, Florida State chose to modernize its policy to provide the necessary resources to student-athletes for them to have the best opportunity to achieve athletic and academic excellence in all 20 sports. The policy also encourages donor participation in each of those five sports.

Seminole Boosters is the entity responsible for implementing the athletic department’s revised ticket priority policy. Seminole Booster President and CEO Stephen Ponder said each donor affected will be contacted by email and phone.

“We will call everyone to talk to them about it and answer any questions they may have,” Ponder said. “Florida State is doing this because we want to compete at the highest level possible and we need to be sure we provide our student-athletes with the tools other schools provide for them to do that.”

The website explaining the changes can be found here. The website provides timelines and seating chart requirements for each sport. The site is intentionally concise, a Seminole Booster employee noted, because each individual’s situation will be different depending on how many seats they have in each venue. Booster representatives intend on speaking to each donor individually to understand their needs and to offer options.

Baseball season ticket holders have never had a season ticket priority policy, so they are likely to be the patrons with the most questions. Forty one percent of baseball season ticket holders are not current Boosters (past two years), so those 200 season ticket holders are likely to have more questions about why a contribution is necessary and what benefits they will receive as a donor.

How does the policy change?

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In years past, the contribution requirements to purchase football tickets also allowed donors priority to buy tickets for men’s basketball, while there was no donation requirement to buy season tickets for the other sports.

In many cases, the donor’s contribution requirement for football tickets was enough to also cover the contribution requirement for basketball, so many would buy basketball tickets too but not use them. Based on the study, it is believed that by requiring a per-seat donation in football and another in basketball, attendance among basketball season ticket holders who also pay a per-seat requirement will improve.

Why? Because the existing season ticket holders will need to make a conscious decision to make the contribution in order to qualify to purchase the tickets. “They will need to have some skin in the game,” one athletic department employee said.

The per-seat donation requirement for every season ticket purchased in those five sports will be based on location within the venue. The individual’s giving in those five sports will be added up and that total will determine their Seminole Booster annual donor level.

Implementation

According to the Seminole Boosters’ site, the modernized policy will be implemented over two seasons, which is consistent with past priority policy changes:

Phase I - Next athletic season, and starting with the current 2023 annual fund membership, all season ticket holders will need to be active members with Seminole Boosters. The annual membership contribution will continue to serve as an “umbrella” donation for all season tickets.

Phase II - Starting in the 2024-25 season and the 2024 annual fund membership, per-seat giving will begin and will be separated by sport, removing the “umbrella” giving.

There are two examples given:

Example A

Tom is a Tomahawk-level member paying $2,000 annually to Seminole Boosters. He has four tickets at Doak that require a $500 seat donation. He also has two tickets at baseball that will require a $500 donation per seat starting in the 2025 season. Tom’s 2023 annual fund donation amount can remain the same. However, his 2024 annual fund will need to increase to $3,000 annually to maintain all his seat locations.

If he is unable or unwilling to pay $3,000 annually to maintain his current seats, he may choose to locate his seats in a lower priority area of those venues or reduce the number of seats he has in those venues.

Example B

Jessica is a baseball season ticket holder and not a Seminole Booster member. She will need to join the 2023 annual fund at the minimum $70 level to renew her seats for the 2024 season, and during the seat selection process for the 2025 season, she will be able to select seat locations based on her booster priority. The seats will have a per-seat donation requirement that will become her new 2024 annual donation amount.

More than 40 percent of Florida State athletics’ budget comes from contributions. As the athletics budget increases, the school must adjust policy to raise enough money to provide their student-athletes and coaches with the operating budget necessary to put a quality product on the field.

As one donor said after seeing their new requirement, “It’s just the cost of doing business.” Florida State Athletics and the Seminole Booster representatives making those phone calls hope every Seminole has the capacity to have a similar attitude.

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