Friday night I saw the MSU Bobcat tv add promoting the season tickets that are now for sale. Not to be outdone the UM came out with its own "media blitz" to promote our season tickets.
With the deadline to renew Montana Grizzlies season football tickets approaching, it's that time of year when hundreds - if not thousands - of would-be season ticket-buyers cross their fingers, hoping to finally move off the waiting list and into seats at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
But despite the nationwide economic downturn, it looks like most of those buyers-in-waiting will have to wait even longer.
Season ticket holders have until June 15 to renew their seat reservations. And according to Adams Center box office manager Celine Fisher, renewals appear to be on a relatively normal pace - meaning that only the usual handful of seats will likely open up this year.
"We haven't seen much in the way of dropping seats, frankly,” Fisher said. “We actually ran some numbers last week and we're at the same place we were this time last year.”
While sales of retail goods, automobiles and homes have flatlined or slumped in western Montana this year, Griz mania seems to outweigh economic worries for many people around the area. Fisher said she even added a few seats in the stadium's east-side expansion to the pool of available seats for full-season purchase this year, in an effort to slim down the overflowing lists of people hoping to obtain coveted season tickets.
“We have three, three-inch-thick binders full of (applications from) people who want to buy season tickets, and we've started a fourth binder now,” Fisher said. “This still remains the most coveted ticket in Montana, and there's still not enough to go around to everyone who wants season tickets.”
The Adams Center box office is still working to fulfill requests for season tickets that date back to 2006. In a typical year, 100 to 150 new season ticket subscribers will get tickets, chosen on a first-come, first-served basis from the pool of existing applicants after the deadline for renewal has passed.
Fisher noted that the post-deadline process also involves shuffling some existing season ticket holders around, either to allow friends or families to sit together or - in some cases - to separate ticket holders who don't get along.
“There's always a little of that, which we try to honor as best we can,” she said.
Some past subscribers may be heartened by the fact that season tickets for 2009 are slightly cheaper, since the Grizzlies will play one fewer home game this year. Season tickets for 2009 are $196 per seat, versus $215 last year.
“We're even-keel over here right now,” Fisher said. “With the waiting list we have and the people who are coming back again, we've been very busy. ? We're happily optimistic.”
