FSU ticket sales up 20 percent in 2011

In the 1990s, the product sold itself.

An annual national title contender, Florida State set up camp in the top four of the national polls. That's all the motivation fans needed to snap up tickets and fill Doak Campbell Stadium.

"When we were coming through the dynasty years, I think we relied so heavily on the fact that we were winning that we didn't have many things in place as far as selling tickets, it just kind of happened," said Ben Zierden, Florida State's Assistant Athletic Director for Ticket Sales and Operations. "We threw the season ticket renewals out there, we had a 92 to 95 percent renewal rate and we sold enough new tickets that we could be sold out."

It didn't stay that way. Disappointing seasons piled up in the 2000's and the Atlantic Coast Conference failed to create any national buzz. Baffling losses paired with lackluster home games to create a significant dip in ticket sales. Entering the 2009 season, Bobby Bowden's final year, season tickets were renewed at just an 80 percent clip.

Now with momentum, high expectations, back-to-back banner recruiting classes and a rare non-conference visit from one of the nation's top programs (Oklahoma), the ticket office is picking up steam. Still a month removed from the season opener, FSU's season ticket renewal rate has increased to 91 percent and overall ticket sales have jumped almost 20 percent, with season tickets going from about 34,000 in 2010 to 39,000.

"For about six years there, we were moving backwards. We dropped 1,000 season tickets, then we dropped 300, then we dropped 3,000, we kept moving backwards," Zierden said. "Last year, we stayed about even and we felt that was a good result for us. I think we stopped the bleeding last year, and thankfully we had a great season on the field, (made the) ACC Championship, beat the (South Carolina) Gamecocks in a good bowl game, had great recruiting class, a big spring game and we're seeing the results of that momentum right now."

On Wednesday, the ticket office announced that there are just 600 full season tickets remaining that include a ticket to the much-anticipated Oklahoma game on Sept. 17. Any special ticket packages that included the Oklahoma game are sold out.

"I think Oklahoma is huge," Zierden said. "Obviously having an anchor game like that helps leverage the ability to sell a season ticket."

While Zierden says performance was the biggest factor in the downturn of ticket sales prior to this offseason, the Tallahassee market and the recession also proved significant. Compared to Gainesville, which has about 8.5 million people within a 2 1/2 hour radius, Tallahassee only has 850,000 people within the same circle.

"I think what we found out was that as the economy took a hit, as the program started to dip a little bit, everybody was kind of standing around, looking at each other and saying 'who's selling tickets?' There wasn't any true selling going on."

So Zierden and the ticket office made some moves.

-They added some buyer-friendly packages like three-game packs, discounted "family zone" tickets and a young alumni package that allowed recent graduates to buy season tickets at a discounted rate.

-They also added an outbound sales staff that has helped generate $1.8 million in revenue between tickets and Booster Contributions for 2011.

-They worked with the the Seminole Boosters and athletics marketing to create more activities throughout home game weekends.

"You're competing with TV, you're competing with air conditioning and you're competing with leather couches," FSU Ticket Sales Director Michael Espada said. "We're trying to make it more of a weekend experience."

-The FSU ticket office also partnered with StubHub for its secondary ticket market, and the two are now integrated in the school's ticket system. The partnership allows season ticket holders that can not make it to a game to post them on Stubhub and receive a check without having to worry about mailing the tickets to the buyer. The FSU ticket office can just deactivate the bar code on the season ticket holder's tickets and re-issue them.

Now the excitement around Doak Campbell Stadium this fall could be working its way back to the dynasty level.

"Overall, we've got some great momentum," Zierden said.