Baylor football is hot hot hot: Bears tie ticket prices to holiday temps
Baylor fans! Your team is coming off its best season in 15 years and returns one of the most exciting quarterbacks in the country. Do you have your season tickets yet?
Stupid question: No, of course you don't. Otherwise, the school wouldn't be planning to dramatically slash season ticket prices based on the whims of Monday's weather:
The high temperature in Waco on July 4th, as recorded by the National Weather Service, will be the price point for all season football tickets sold outside of the premium seating sections at Floyd Casey Stadium from July 5-10. The average high temperature in Waco on Independence Day is 95 degrees with a record high of 101 recorded in 1990.
"While season ticket sales have been brisk, we believe this Independence Day promotion will be attractive to many of our fans who have not yet purchased tickets," said Baylor's Executive Associate A.D./External Affairs Nick Joos. "Even if Waco were to record a new high for the 4th, fans would be looking at saving nearly 30 percent off the cost of our Super Fan ticket. Of course, if we were to get a break from the hot weather we've had the last month, that discount would give fans an even lower price point at which to purchase season tickets."
The "Super Fan" package is normally priced at $160, or about $22.80 per game for seven home games this fall, already a bargain. Current forecasts for Waco call for a high of 99 degrees on Monday for the third day in a row. (It's 99 degrees there this afternoon, too.) If that holds up, the promotion is likely to put tickets in the neighborhood of $14 per game, for a home schedule that includes visits from TCU, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. And if it happens to be "partly cloudy" all day, well, we might just have a new definition of "cheap seats."
Frankly, it seems like ticket prices for Baylor games should be going up. Official attendance climbed last season for the third year in a row since Art Briles took over as head coach in 2008, and cracked 40,000 per game in 50,000-seat Floyd Casey Stadium for the first time since 1995 — the year of both the demise of the old Southwest Conference and Baylor's last winning record (7-4) prior to 2010. If 7-6, a rare win over Texas and another season of Robert Griffin can't get Baptist butts in the seats, I'd really hate to be on the promotion team next year if the upcoming season is a regression to the mean.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
