Tag Archives: Reser Stadium

OSU football ticket prices and attendance

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The high cost of tickets in 2015 was a factor in the low attendance last season.  Using single game ticket prices as a barometer of pricing strategy reveals that there have been very large increases in ticket prices over time.  Here’s the prices for single game, non-club tickets for the 2015 season:

Weber State $40
San Jose State $50
Stanford $80
Colorado $80
UCLA $80
UW $80

The past practice has been to price tickets so that D-1AA (FCS) schools were the lowest priced tickets and non-conference opponents slightly lower than most conference opponents (base conference price).  There was also 1 or possibly 2 premium priced tickets for the Civil War or for UW.  That strategy was changed in 2015 season with all conference opponent tickets priced at premium levels and that approach has been continued in 2016:

Idaho State $35
Boise State $80
California $80
Utah $80
WSU $80
Arizona $80
Oregon $100

The price of tickets and fan interest in a particular opponent are two factors that govern ticket sales.  Single game ticket prices have risen dramatically since 2007.  This period was marked by Reser Stadium reaching its current capacity.  Ticket prices can also influence attendance, particularly among the buyers of single game tickets (see figure below – click to enlarge).

Ticket prices and attendance

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OSU Football Attendance Trends

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Football attendance at OSU took a step backwards in 2015.  Average per game attendance was 36,079 in 2015, the lowest per game average for a season since the 2000 season.  A big year over year jump in single game ticket prices, inconvenient game times, and poor performance of the team combined to cause the drop in attendance in 2015.

Attendance trends

Nevertheless, the long-term trend in attendance is upward despite the recent downward dip in attendance.  The other consideration is the relationship of attendance to capacity.  For most of the history of Parker/Reser Stadium, the gap between attendance and capacity was quite large.  That gap narrowed and for a time was negligible in the early 2000s.

When Reser Stadium was expanded in 2005 and again in 2007, the gap between capacity and attendance widened again, but was still small from a historical perspective.  The gap grew again in 2015.

The role that ticket prices play in attendance and changes over time in prices will be examined in future posts.

A Financial Profile for OSU Football

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In the first installment of this series, we learned that football is the economic engine that drives OSU’s athletic program, and currently supplies 51% of all department revenues.  This article profiles the financial health of the football program and trends in the program over time.  Future articles will present similar profiles for other OSU sports programs. Continue reading →

A final look at Reser Stadium attendance in 2012

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The 2012 season had four sellouts and those games ranked among the top 10 in single game attendance.  Two of those sellout games – Oregon and WSU, each eclipsed the previous single game attendance mark set in 2010.

Parker Stadium in the 1950s.

This season had the most sellouts since 2004 when 5 sellouts were recorded, the last season prior to Reser Stadium expansion.  The record for sellouts in a season is 7 games and was  set in 2002 and equaled in 2003.  The four sellouts that OSU experienced in 2012 were as many as were recorded in total over the six seasons from 2006 to 2011.  The good fortunes on the football field in 2012 as well as the good schedule of opponents traveling to Reser this season more than offset the loss in season ticket holders.

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Reser Stadium Attendance: Records and Trends

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With the start of a new football season, it’s time to review some attendance statistics at Reser Stadium. The capacity of Reser (formerly known as Parker) Stadium has varied with the fortunes of Beaver football and the size of the student body population since its opening (Fig 1). Here are past and present seating capacities for Reser Stadium:

1953 – 1957 25,000
1958 – 1964 28,000
1965 – 1966 33,000
1967 – 1989 40,593
1990 – 2004 35,362
2005 – 2006 43,300
2007 – present 45,674

Figure 1. Trends in Reser Stadium attendance and capacity.

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OSU Bookstore relocation from center of campus to parking garage

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The move is planned in 2013 from the current Memorial Union site to the unused portion of the ground floor located within the parking structure across the street from Gill Coliseum. The project is currently in the schematic design approval phase with the campus planning committee. Here are some of the schematic representations of the proposed bookstore. Figure 1 depicts the southwest corner of the bookstore from the corner of Ralph Miller Drive by Gill Coliseum. Figure 2 shows the northwest corner of the structure from Student Legacy Park. For reference, note the gray parking structure in the background of each schematic representation.

Figure 1. OSU bookstore from Ralph Miller Drive (click to enlarge)

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