San Diego State AD Jim Sterk earlier this month informed men's basketball season-ticket holders that prices "would rise next season, citing a need to fund new cost-of-attendance stipends that power five conferences will offer scholarship athletes and that SDSU intends to match," according to Mark Zeigler of the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE. In most cases, season tickets for '15-16 will rise about 20% "from corresponding seating categories, from, say, $850 to $1,000 for 'red' areas (including a mandatory Aztec Club donation)." But the seating categories "subtly shifted in many sections." If fans have courtside seats eight rows up behind the benches that for the past two seasons were considered a “light blue” category and cost $950, it is now "classified as 'tan,' which is one price category higher and costs $1,600" in '15-16. That represents a 68% "bump" in cost (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 4/2).
THANKS BUT NO THANKS: In Columbia, Andrew Shain reported the state of South Carolina's biggest colleges said Wednesday that they "don’t need a proposed state law that would pay football and basketball players." A state Senate panel "heard from ex-football players and college leaders," including South Carolina AD Ray Tanner, "about a bill that would require South Carolina’s largest colleges to pay student-athletes up to $10,000 a year." School officials said that the plan "would violate NCAA regulations if it becomes state law." Officials from both South Carolina and Clemson told legislators that they "will provide stipends to cover costs that athletics scholarships don’t meet." South Carolina "plans to give full-scholarship athletes $4,201 a year, starting in August." Clemson Associate AD/Compliance Services Stephanie Ellison said that the school's full-scholarship athletes "will receive $3,604 a year" (Columbia STATE, 4/2).
HIGHER LEARNING: In Des Moines, Randy Peterson reported Iowa State scholarship athletes "will receive $2,430 in new money that will suddenly appear when schools from the most powerful conferences in the country start calling their own shots in August." Meanwhile, each scholarship athlete at Iowa "is expected to receive an additional total between $3,100 and $3,200." The additional expenditure "will cost the self-funded athletic departments at Iowa's largest two universities more than" $1M. However, none of the other sports programs "are on the chopping block" (DES MOINES REGISTER, 3/31).
