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Arizona State’s Impatience Cost Them a Chance To Make an Extra One Million Dollars For the Notre Dame Game

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By @MattHeinz_Rant

Jaelen Strong Arizona State

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It’s no secret that Arizona State is making loads of money from Saturday’s Notre Dame game which will be sold out in Tempe. What is unfortunate for Arizona State is that had they held off their stadium renovation plans another year, the school could have made roughly $1,140,000 more.

Sun Devil Stadium has been in Tempe since 1958 and is an iconic stadium in college football with the way it sits perfectly in between two mountain buttes and is located along Tempe Town Lake. The stadium hosted the 1996 Super Bowl in which the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers. It has also hosted Fiesta Bowls that have decided National Championships like when Notre Dame defeated West Virginia to capture the 1988 crown. The last Fiesta Bowl played in the stadium was actually in 2006, when Ohio State beat Notre Dame in a game that featured a controversial fumble return for a touchdown by Tom Zbikowski that was called back. The Arizona Cardinals even used to call Sun Devil Stadium home until they moved to Glendale in 2006.

The stadium is historic, but it is also outdated. This September, the Arizona Board of Regents approved a $256 million renovation plan for the stadium that includes a new sound system, an advanced video board, more legroom and backrests as well as more bathrooms. This is all great news for Arizona State, but a mistake was made following last season regarding the renovations.

Last spring, the decision was made to take out 5,700 seats in the north end zone. The major reason behind knocking out 5,700 seats was because Sun Devil fans very rarely fill up the entire stadium. There were about 1,000 empty seats at last year’s Pac 12 Championship game against Stanford. Aside from when away teams bring in their fans such as Arizona, Wisconsin or Notre Dame, the stadium is filled with empty seats. The university decided to reduce the capacity to just 65,870 in order for the stadium to look more appealing on television.

The decision to take out 5,700 seats is not what costs Arizona State University over a million dollars — the timing of the decision is what cost the school. They jumped the gun. Notre Dame has a national fanbase, meaning the west coast is full of golden domers who will flock to Tempe to see the Irish. The Irish also have tons of fans who are very excited for a vacation to 80-degree Arizona as opposed to staying in the cold Midwest.

As I mentioned here, Arizona State is cashing in on this game by charging fans $200 for upper deck tickets and making them purchase tickets to the Washington State contest as well if they wish to see Notre Dame. No single game tickets were ever made available to the public. Even at $200, every ticket was sold and there is no doubt  that would have been the case had the Sun Devils kept their original capacity of 71,706.

Time to do some math here. Arizona State University charged fans $200 for upper deck tickets to Notre Dame and Washington State as part of their mini-plan package. 5,700 seats were taken out of Sun Devil Stadium this spring. If they had sold those tickets like they should have, the school would have made an additional $1,140,000.

Arizona State backed up their decision to force fans to buy tickets to the Washington State game if they intended to watch the Irish by saying: “Due to the stature and history of the opponent, we anticipated a much higher demand for the game,” said Michael Meitin, ASU’s director of ticket sales and service. “We wanted people to commit to Sun Devil Athletics for multiple games other than just one.”

With both teams ranked in the college football playoff ranking’s top 10, this is arguably the most sought after Arizona State ticket since Nebraska came into town with their No. 1 ranking in 1996. The Irish bring a following whether they are good or bad, and in 2014, with Notre Dame fighting for a berth in the playoff, this ticket is hotter than Tempe in June.

While Arizona State is very smart for making fans buy multiple games, they really made a mistake by not waiting one more season to knock out the 5,700 seats. Was looking better on television really more important than $1,140,000?

Matt Heinz is a college football writer for www.Rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattHeinz_Rant.

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