In Charleston, Mitch Vingle notes West Virginia's season-ticket sales "haven’t reflected the enthusiasm" school officials were "hoping to see." WVU Senior Associate AD/External Affairs Matt Wells said, “We’re about at 24,000 season ticket sales. We’ll have some more roll in here between now and the first home game, but my guess is we’ll be in the 25,000- to 26,000-range total when it’s all said and done. That will put us slightly behind last year’s final number (of 26,542). We’re slightly behind in full season ticket sales. It’s going to be relatively flat unless we have a little bit of a rally. If it stays on the current pace, we’ll be slightly behind.” Wells did say WVU's three-game mini-package sales are about 10-12% "ahead of pace from where we were last year.” WVU has the "ability to sell 39,000 regular-season ticket packages in the current stadium configuration (60,000 capacity)" (CHARLESTON GAZETTE-MAIL, 7/27).
ALL ABOUT THE U? In Ft. Lauderdale, Christy Chirinos notes Miami is "returning a multitude of players from a team that finished" the year ranked No. 13 in the final AP Top 25 poll, and fans have been "buying season tickets at a clip Miami hasn’t experienced in years." UM AD Blake James said that fewer than 1,500 season tickets "remained available for purchase ahead of the Hurricanes’ Sept. 8 home opener against Savannah State." James said he is confident UM is "going to sell out and we’ll do something that’s never been done in the history" of the school by "selling out our stadium with season tickets” (SUN-SENTINEL.com, 7/26).
TROUBLING TREND: In Connecticut, Neill Ostrout writes for UConn, how many fans "show up for its home football games this season is perhaps more important than how many wins the Huskies compile on the field." Those two things are "of course often linked," and UConn's "recent downturn in results is a major factor in the declining attendance at Pratt & Whitney Stadium." But the school has "tried to make a push to get fans into the seats in East Hartford this season" with a "summer of public events and pleas." Attendance at UConn home games has "declined each season" since '10 except one, but last season it "took a major dip." UConn "drew an average of just 20,335 fans per game," a "drop of more than 6,000 fans from the previous season" (Manchester JOURNAL INQUIRER, 7/27).
