Cal Launches Campaign Focused On Memorial Stadium Premium Seat Sales

Slow seat sales at the Univ. of California's Memorial Stadium have prompted the school “to launch a fresh marketing campaign and look for other revenue in an effort to keep pace" with the $18M a year in debt it will "soon owe” for the stadium's renovation and athletic center construction, according to Matier & Ross of the S.F. CHRONICLE. The renovated stadium “opened last season, but only about 1,900 of the 2,900 premium club seats -- lifetime spots that cost anywhere from $40,000 to $225,000 each -- have been sold.” Not everyone who bought a seat "has fully paid up.” The Cal athletic department is “shelling out another half a million dollars on a new sales team that will push the unsold premium seats.” There also is a “push to land more naming rights deals,” and officials “want to rent out space at the stadium for wedding receptions and corporate events” (S.F. CHRONICLE, 2/25).