Texas Tech football sets Jones Stadium capacity for 2023, sells out of season tickets
The modified capacity of Jones AT&T Stadium this season has been determined. It'll be 56,200, a Texas Tech athletics official said this week, and the Red Raiders could hit that number for a lot of football games this season.
Texas Tech announced Friday a sellout of its football season tickets, a total of 31,649.
"We're just pleased that we are where we are right now," Tech senior associate athletics director Robert Giovannetti said. "I think it shows that our fans are as excited about this season as we are, and we expect this is going to lead to six sellouts this year, hopefully.
"If you look across the board, our single-game ticket sales are going well for all the games, and I think there's a lot of excitement. I think the season tickets sold is a reflection of that."
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Since 2002, the most football season tickets Tech has sold was 38,320 in 2014. It also sold 34,577 in 2016 and 33,586 in 2015. Those are the three highest totals over the past two decades.
Tech won't reach those numbers this year with fewer season tickets, though it has ended a six-year streak of being below 30,000.
The number of seats allocated for Tech students this season is 12,647, which is within the usual range.
This year will be the first time in several years the Goin' Band will not occupy sections overlooking the south end zone. The band is being relocated to section 23, the last lower-level section in the southeast corner.
The two-year construction project under way since late November has narrowed the Jones AT&T Stadium capacity by more than 4,000 since last season. The centerpiece of the project will be a four-level south end zone building that won't be finished until 2024.
The stadium capacity once the project is complete remains undetermined.
"It's still too early to say as they finalize what the premium seating's going to look like," Giovannetti said. "Once that's determined, then they'll know the number of suites, the number of people that can fit in the club area and that type thing, then we'll be able to give a number."
Chris Huckabee, chair of the Red Raider Facility Foundation, said in late June that the south end zone is "definitely going to look like a construction project this season." Work will shut down and the site will be secured each Thursday on game weeks, and then work will resume after games either late Saturday or Sunday.
Giovannetti said this week a sponsor banner will front the construction, but isn't intended to cover it up.
"We want people to see the construction, right?" he said. "We want people to see the future. The size of it, I think people will start to pick up on the scope of the project and realize the stadium's going to look much different next year."
The designated student sections are 13-17, 20-22 and 113-115. Section 13-17 and 20-22 are on the lower level of the east side, and sections 113-115 are upper-level east-side seats.
"We're trying to take advantage of more of those upper-deck sections to provide for student overflow," Giovannetti said. "We met with the student government leaders to talk them through the project and where we're going, so we feel pretty good about the relationship there, and we're working hard to make sure they don't lose any seats.
"They've been able to sit up there in the past if it got to that point where there was overflow. Depending on student attendance, we may sell some general-admission tickets up there for a game."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football sets Jones Stadium capacity for 2023, sells out of season tickets
