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Spring game email and related season parking question

billhobo

All Conference
Jan 7, 2004
3,325
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Pardon me if these topics have been brought up already, but in response to the "important dates" email from the athletic department, I really like the Friday night spring game idea, but have a question about the season parking info.

If Rutgers the only place that makes you renew tickets and parking 6 months in advance but then shifts the point requirements for parking after the fact? If this is commonplace in the CFB marketplace or was announced earlier somewhere else and I was oblivious I'll shut up, but why does it seem like there's always a moving target for parking passes, road game tickets, etc.?

Personally, I find it obnoxious, and don't really get where the school derives the gift requirement. For instance, why is someone who buys 8 season tickets paying the same gift as, say, someone who buys 2; but then if you buy 20 your gift is 4x that amount for all lots except Scarlet, where it's 8x the amount as a 1- to 8-ticket buyer?

I ask because I had the agent tell me one thing over the phone when I renewed, but have doubts now based on the latest email from athletics.
 
I can't speak to most of your comment, but I can tell you when I spoke to a ticket rep about the Priority parking program, they seemed to give me info that didnt mesh with the chart they provided (re: how much gift you would owe based on passes you want).

For instance Blue lot / 9 season tix / 2 parking passes-----if you go off row for # of tix, it says you should pay min Annual athletic gift of $1000. However they told me you would only owe a min gift of $500 since you're only getting 2 passes and not 3. I've received inconsistent answers about policies in the past, so not sure what to make of it.

http://www.scarletknights.com/development/parking.html#.VRwZ2fnF98F

In regards to the shifting point cutoffs, I think one part of the issue is that they don't seem to have a system in place that tracks peoples points in real time (although I'm not sure why they can't get one).
 
Originally posted by billhobo:

If Rutgers the only place that makes you renew tickets and parking 6 months in advance but then shifts the point requirements for parking after the fact? If this is commonplace in the CFB marketplace or was announced earlier somewhere else and I was oblivious I'll shut up, but why does it seem like there's always a moving target for parking passes, road game tickets, etc.?
This is not uncommon. This is intended to get people to maximize their donations. If you are willing to donate $5,000 for parking but RU says you only need to give $3,500 they are losing out on $1,500.

You can't rank people for parking, road game tickets etc before you know who is actually going to buy them.

Originally posted by billhobo:

Personally, I find it obnoxious, and don't really get where the school derives the gift requirement. For instance, why is someone who buys 8 season tickets paying the same gift as, say, someone who buys 2; but then if you buy 20 your gift is 4x that amount for all lots except Scarlet, where it's 8x the amount as a 1- to 8-ticket buyer?
Well I think the thought process is that the additional revenue for the school of 8 tickets vs. 2 is enough that they don't see the need to add on additional gift revenue. They just set a range rather than a per ticket basis although most everyone that is trying to get the best parking is most likely paying a per seat gift anyway.

For larger groups the larger donation probably reflects the fact that they believe that if you have 20 tickets you fall into 1 of 3 categories - a large group of people pitching in for tickets, a ticket broker, or an individual with strong financial means. All of those groups would likely be able to afford a larger donation. Whereas 2-8 tickets may be much more likely to be one individual or two footing the bill.

There's no perfect system but ultimately Rutgers is trying to maximize revenue. That is the reality of big time college athletics.
 
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