UCATS announcement this week

[Lobot]

OK question for those of you seeing a price increase. Do you understand why the price went up? I don't have the answer btw. Just asking if it's clear to you why your seats cost more. Is it because the tickets you had were reallocated to one of the new "tiers" effectively?

[Chewbacca2099]

The only reason it is more is because it's now a donation per seat. So for redzone seating it used to be $100 donation and you could buy 8 tickets. Now it is $25 per seat, so $200 donation for the same 8 seats.

And honestly its not a big deal to me other than I can get the same seats/tickets much cheaper without donating... we sit in the redzone so we can sit with all of our friends. If we moved to a more expensive section we couldn't sit with everyone else. But I am concerned with the prices going up, some people are going to say they can't spend that much and will either buy cheaper tickets for a couple games later or watch on TV.

[Brian H.]

I don't plan on renewing my 4 tickets I have had for the last 5 years even though I think the price stays the same. As my wife said at some of the colder games, people were giving away tickets for free, why are we paying for them? Also once the weather turns worse I can't find anyone to go with me (wife and kids refuse to stand in the rain/cold). I will still make a donation to Ucats, and then wait to see what ticket packs they sell or pick up individual tickets.

[coach]

Yes, that's exactly it. They are attempting to get more folks to join ucats and reduce the multiple seat folks, and basically force them into small groups with more ucats memberships. It will probably create opportunities for folks to get into better seats if they want to up their donation to secure the better seats. However, with all the added seats they are putting in with the new addition, i kind of doubt they will have that kind of demand, particularly in this conference. If it works, i would support it as they need the money. However, with this schedule i seriously doubt it. I also have 8, and i used to give 4 out for business. However, i will just cut back now to 4. Not worth that much annually. I didn't always have takers with last year's schedule. I hope for their sake the conference thing is solved, because this will likely cut sales.

[Chewbacca2099]

I don't plan on renewing my 4 tickets I have had for the last 5 years even though I think the price stays the same. As my wife said at some of the colder games, people were giving away tickets for free, why are we paying for them? Also once the weather turns worse I can't find anyone to go with me (wife and kids refuse to stand in the rain/cold). I will still make a donation to Ucats, and then wait to see what ticket packs they sell or pick up individual tickets.

I agree with this too, I honestly couldn't give away tickets to the games last year. There were 4-5 games I had extra tickets for and I couldn't give them away and there were never any scalpers around. I hope moving back to nippert changes the trend and increases excitement and demand for seats. Of course if the team stinks it up early on again it will probably be more of the same

[Lobot]

Well I finally printed out the seating charts and figured out mine. My football tickets have doubled due to new seating chart layout and the basketball tickets tripled because I was in the cheap seats and looks like they have changed the layout there also. I could be wrong on basketball.

[nolte50uc]

According to Greg Harrell only 40% of the seat holders will receive a cost increase..

ONLY 40% see increases?! that's a lot. admittedly, i haven't looked closely at this yet - only what i'm reading here - but the biggest fault in my mind is that they are not accounting for family seats. for example, if me and my buddies all have seats, i see the per seat model working so we all join UCasts and make the numbers look better. however, if my wife and boys want seats, to pay for four UCats memberships is a bit recockulous.

again, i may be off on this, but if that's true, it's pretty disappointing.

[Bearcat Otto]

ONLY 40% see increases?! that's a lot. admittedly, i haven't looked closely at this yet - only what i'm reading here - but the biggest fault in my mind is that they are not accounting for family seats. for example, if me and my buddies all have seats, i see the per seat model working so we all join UCasts and make the numbers look better. however, if my wife and boys want seats, to pay for four UCats memberships is a bit recockulous.

again, i may be off on this, but if that's true, it's pretty disappointing.

I don't think you would have to create four separate UCAT accounts in your family. Just that each seat is assigned at dollar amount that is contributed to UCATS. The number of new UCAT memberships will come from the groups that have large numbers of seats and they will splinter off into new accounts.

[Levittation]

[Bearcat Otto]

I guess that is a choice that you and other will need to make. In my opinion, the Bearcats are still the best bargain in town.

I would bet that if someone looked at where you spend money, they could easily find something that they would disagree with you and wonder why you would spend money on that function. Everyone has their own plan in their budget.

Here is a reason to stay on board; Especially if you like your ticket location. If in the near future we are granted access to a P5 conference, you may not be able to get like seats if you want to come back. All lost for a couple of dollars extra for still the best deal in town.

[JDBEARCAT]

I like your positive approach & your loyalty. However, we struggle to get butts in the seats now. Look at the last 2 games. Great games, big outcomes & the place was nearly empty for the Houston game. They even stated that the club seats would pay for the expansion. So now you increase prices with a weak conference schedule & only 15,000 season tickets sold? I don't think this a smart move at all.

[coach]

You're pretty much on point JD. If you had a really good schedule(say b12 or acc) in fball with either quality opponents or rivalries(see wv, lvl, pitt, etc) it's a much more viable plan. However, with this aac lineup, it's a formula for a lot of empty seats, and a drop in overall ucats revenues. Maybe they know something we do not, but there clearly is an entertainment angle here given the competition with pro teams, etc. and i believe that the overall increases coupled with the added seats will only put more pressure on filling the place up. One only needs to recall a number of the away games and all those empty seats to determine what the interest is going to be to go down and watch some of these teams in person. If you are trying to show fan support to move up, this is a really risky move. It's kind of like tempting the fence sitting fans to just chuck season tickets and do what they want week to week.

[98bearcat]

You're pretty much on point JD. If you had a really good schedule(say b12 or acc) in fball with either quality opponents or rivalries(see wv, lvl, pitt, etc) it's a much more viable plan. However, with this aac lineup, it's a formula for a lot of empty seats, and a drop in overall ucats revenues. Maybe they know something we do not, but there clearly is an entertainment angle here given the competition with pro teams, etc. and i believe that the overall increases coupled with the added seats will only put more pressure on filling the place up. One only needs to recall a number of the away games and all those empty seats to determine what the interest is going to be to go down and watch some of these teams in person. If you are trying to show fan support to move up, this is a really risky move. It's kind of like tempting the fence sitting fans to just chuck season tickets and do what they want week to week.

This can easily go the other direction, especially in this first year with all the buzz of a new stadium... I know a lot of friends who have "NEVER" bought season tickets for UC before are all purchasing them for this next year.. soo, who knows. I personally have no problem with the changes, UC needs to stop acting small time... even with the price changes it is a better deal for a better team than almost everything else out there... what else are going to spend your entertainment dollars on?? Season Reds? Bengals? wtf is the hockey teams name?? besides you can get 5 years of season tickets for 1 years cost of the cheap seats at Bengals.. stop whining please.

[Lobot]

Well I just got my UCATS renewal email this morning. I opted to keep my seats and here's the math: 2 seats in Lower sideline section cost me an additional $275 + the additional per seat fee was $75 more than last year. So the additional cost to keep my existing seats was $350 compared to last year.

That's quite a bit of a price increase for the these particular seats considering they're on the visitors sideline in an upper half of section 103 on the 20. I'm not happy about the increase but if I look at it like it was something I was paying a monthly bill on, it comes out to an additional $31.25 a month. I'm of the opinion that I can afford that to throw some additional support at the program. The schedule this year leaves something to be desired to a point but if $375 helps us get into a P5 conference, I'll take it and my seats become an investment toward what is hopefully better home opponents in the future.

I'm sure my logic doesn't work for everyone but you may want to break your costs down similar to what I've done and evaluate your own situation.

[richard k.]

This can easily go the other direction, especially in this first year with all the buzz of a new stadium... I know a lot of friends who have "NEVER" bought season tickets for UC before are all purchasing them for this next year.. soo, who knows. I personally have no problem with the changes, UC needs to stop acting small time... even with the price changes it is a better deal for a better team than almost everything else out there... what else are going to spend your entertainment dollars on?? Season Reds? Bengals? wtf is the hockey teams name?? besides you can get 5 years of season tickets for 1 years cost of the cheap seats at Bengals.. stop whining please.

Since I have only 2 seats (wife or son and me) I called UCATS to make sure my arithmetic was correct and lo and behold I will actually be spending $70 less this season than 2013. The young lady at UCATS was well aware of the complaints that a number of you have - have no idea what they will do, if anything to assuage the situation (I know that I was part of a group for a number of years and got no UCATS credit - so as an individual I am better off with my own account/seats - but again everyone has their own needs).