September 30, 2024 | Read Online

Physical tickets in a ticketless world

Potentially another way for athletic departments to find a few more bucks

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Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

Before we start today, I did want to share a little bit of housekeeping news with all of you.

I am hitting the road this month!

As of this moment, I am scheduled to leave Extra Points HQ for three reporting-related trips in October.

I’ll be in Salt Lake/Utah County, Utah from October 9-13, working at least one BYU-related story that I’ve wanted to write for oh, maybe seven years or so, while also kicking the tires on potential UVU or Utah-related newsletters. I

Next, I’ll be in the Charlotte, NC area from October 17-18. I’m actually moderating a panel discussion for an event on “building winning cultures” at Gaston College. This will be a quick trip, but I hope to squeeze in some other reporting while I’m in the neighborhood.

Finally, I’m tentatively scheduled to be in Hawaii from October 27-30, and in Fresno, CA from the 31 to Nov 3. Both of these trips are for Serious Professional Editorial business.

If you’re in the neighborhood and want me to swing by to say hello, drop me a line! I’m at Matt@ExtraPointsMB.com.

We’ve also already made updates to the Extra Points Library

Last week, I was thrilled to announce the release of Extra Points Library, the updated version of our FOIA Directory that Dennis and I have been plugging away on for months. Thank you so much for the feedback (positive and constructive) and for the well-wishes. The Library has only been up and running for a few days, but we’ve already made some quality of life updates to the system, plus added a good dozen more FRS reports….with tons more documents coming. If you find yourself needing info on coach contracts, vendor agreements, department budgets or other FOIA-related research projects, check out the Library.

Okay, enough housekeeping. Let’s talk about an idea that might help your favorite program make a few extra bucks.

While a few athletic departments were already moving in this direction, COVID shoved hundreds of schools into fully embracing a digital-only ticketing environment. Handling all the ticketing on apps helped give schools better marketing data on consumers, better aligned with the habits and expectations of younger consumers, and eventually, helped simplify gameday operations. Even mid and low-major programs moved to adopt ticketless systems over the last few years.

But there are a few problems with this system. One of the thornier ones? Some folks still actually want the ticket.

Katie Wisdom, the Assistant AD of Ticket Operations at Ole Miss, told me their fans had a similar story. The department moved to mobile ticketing after COVID, and now, “is about 85%, 90% mobile, with our students being completely mobile. Their tickets don’t even have barcodes anymore.”

But not every Ole Miss ticketholder is a 20-year old smartphone native, and Wisdom saw that some fans still wanted a physical ticket experience. Ole Miss offers a “print at home” option, she told me, but while that could provide a functional physical ticket, it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you’d want to keep as a memento. It’s just black ink on printer paper.

Maybe you’re like me. I have a huge box in my office closet, full of binder after binder of sports trading cards, the collection I kept from when I was a 5th grade boy. Wedged in those sleeves, behind mountains of Ka-Jana Carter rookie cards (my original retirement plan, which sadly, doesn’t look great), are ticket stubs…from baseball games I attended with my parents, early concert tickets, even a few movies.

I didn’t keep them because I hoped to flip them someday…not sure if there’s much of a collector’s market for random Cleveland Indians games from the late 1990s…but because they were memorable to me.

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Wisdom told me that Ole Miss does have fans just like that, who want to commemorate any game they attend, even if that’s hypothetically a baseball game against a Southland opponent. Ole Miss now offers an option to print out a game ticket (for a modest fee) at the game…so if something crazy happens, or if a family just wants to remember a game for their own reasons, they can do that.

But Wisdom also told me that many fans had specifically reached out about wanting a higher-touch physical collectible around major games. The department now creates a physical ticket collectible option for season-ticket packages as well, complete with glossy art from the school’s marketing department.

There are a few companies that produce this sort of work. Ole Miss worked with a firm called WW&L, based out of Ft. Smith, Arkansas. WW&L has been in business since the 1800s, producing not only physical event tickets, but also printing for parking masses, media credentials, and more. Another firm, Ticket Time Machine, mostly works in the music industry, but also with professional hockey, Florida Gators, and others.

I spoke to folks at both companies, and with a few operators at the school level, and I’m not aware of any college program that has suddenly turned commemorative physical tickets into an eight-figure revenue operation or anything. This is not a magic bullet that will solve revenue problems…but if done with intentionality, it can be another tool to drive revenue in multiple ways.

Wisdom told me that while sales have been very strong this year, revenue was modest for the first few years that Ole Miss offered physical ticket printing. But with the expected success of the Ole Miss football team this season (last weekend’s upset against Kentucky notwithstanding), the school is hopeful about not just the revenue growth potential, but the potential to use the tickets to drive other forms of engagement.

If Ole Miss were to hypothetically win a big game on the road, well, the school can still print commemorative tickets for the event, and that offering can go in the fundraising email that the department would otherwise send out to try and capitalize on the momentum. Other schools told me they could see physical ticket printing potentially being used as a fundraiser for a collective or NIL activity (look, these tickets were signed by the guy that caught the touchdown pass!), or as lagniappe to help encourage other donor engagement or activity.

Of course, if the department is struggling to sell tickets at all, selling commemorative mock-ups could be a moot point. But if fans are filling seats…perhaps this is a strategy other schools could consider.

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A few other quick notes I want to mention that have been piling up…

UNLV was the internet’s most important college football program last week, and not just for realignment purposes. But the team’s first game after QB Matt Sluka elected to redshirt and seek a transfer over the alleged failure of the program to honor an NIL commitment…went about as well as the Rebels could have hoped. New QB Hajj-Malik Williams accounted for four touchdowns, the Rebels rolled up over 450 yards of total offense, and UNLV crushed Fresno State, 59-14. UNLV is 4-0 and ranked in the AP Poll. Only one game…but notable!
Speaking of realignment, as of Sunday evening, the most current news appears to be that Texas State “has a verbal offer” to join the Mountain West conference. I asked a few industry sources early last week, was told that Sun Belt schools felt very good about their ability to keep all of their members, but that was a week ago! The Daily News-Record reported that Sun Belt officials “are preparing for the possibility that Texas State leaves” and that Sun Belt officials believe that if a spot were to open in the league, “multiple CUSA Schools and perhaps some from the MAC” would be interested.
FWIW, I continue to hear that both the Pac-12 and the MWC are prioritizing current FBS institutions over FCS candidates for membership spots. If a few more targets for either league fall through, perhaps that changes, but that feedback has been consistent from my conversations across the FCS landscape. In a post-House world, that transition becomes very expensive, and likely requires buy-in from beyond the campus level to make it work.
I’ve heard a lot about programs facing difficult travel circumstances since I started this publication. Flights get canceled. Buses can get into accidents. Weather can turn for the worse. But I can’t remember a team that had a travel nightmare like ETSU football did over the weekend. Glad they got to compete, but more importantly, glad they’re okay.
I thought the Washington Post did a great job here adding more details and context to a story we ran last week…about how Hawaii is hoping increased gambler interest in their late-night games can lead to more revenue and stability for the athletic department. The story says Hawaii AD Craig Angelos “Angelos told The Post he had an “investigatory” Zoom call with a major streaming service this month. One catch, though, is that intrigued networks would be significantly more intrigued if Hawaii had broken off from the Mountain West and went independent in football. That’s no longer an option — at least for the foreseeable future — after Hawaii signed on Thursday to remain a football-only member until 2032. With conference realignment in full swing again, the Mountain West offered financial incentives for a renewed commitment from its remaining schools. Hawaii chose that over leaping into the abyss.” I’ve heard the same, FWIW. Not sure how the Hawaii TV (or conference alignment) story ends, but there will be interest in them no matter what.