Student tickets or mini-plans of less than a full season's worth of tickets are not part of the donation programGETTY IMAGES
The Univ. of Michigan is "taking a wait-and-see approach to a change in the tax code that could jeopardize millions of dollars of athletic department funding" thanks to a "deeply loyal and deep-pocketed fanbase," according to Bill Shea of CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS. For years, a charitable donation of $150 or more to UM's Preferred Seat Donation program was "required in return for the right to buy football season tickets," and the IRS until this year "allowed donors to write off 80 percent of the donation." But that changed with the new tax bill that "became law on Jan. 1," and the 80% charitable donation write-off "was eliminated." Donations "in return for tickets account" for $30.1M of the UM athletic department's $182.4M budget, which has only a $2M margin "built in for the current year." UM Associate AD Kurt Svoboda said, "We are moving forward with our ticket renewals for football in the coming weeks. It is simply too early to know what the impacts will be." The athletic department said that there "were 72,000 non-student season tickets sold last season, and all such tickets fell under the Preferred Seat Donation program." Student tickets, single-game tickets and mini-plans of less than a full season's worth of tickets "are not part of the donation program." UM's athletic department budget estimated $30.1M in "preferred seating donation revenue" for '17 and '18. That was "before the GOP-led tax bill was created in Congress" (CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS, 2/5 issue).
