College sports no longer want me as a fanatic. As with so many other businesses – pro sports, movies, and certain restaurants come to mind – they have effectively fired me as their customer. And that’s OK.
As a fan or a former sportswriter, I’ve been financially or emotionally invested in college sports for roughly six decades. Thus, I could easily pout, get angry, or promise I’ll never buy another ticket to a game or another T-shirt. But none of that’s true.
It turns out that life goes on just fine without businesses that don’t want me as their customer. So I’m not mad. I’m not bitter. And a new pair of Arkansas Razorback gym shorts is on my Christmas list.
I’ll follow along from a distance. I’m just not investing nearly as much time, emotional energy, or financial support in college sports as I did before I was fired as a fanatic.
My pink slip came from the University of Arkansas, which regularly makes business decisions that tell the world which customers it values. As consumers, the rest of us make decisions about how to manage our finances. Then we all live with those decisions.
The UA, a microcosm of college sports, has made a series of decisions that say, “We don’t value fans like you.” In other words, “You’re fired.” I said, “That’s fine; I’ll move along with life.”
This parting won’t cause a ripple in the Razorbacks’ waters. But if they keep firing fans like me, and our numbers appear to be growing, then it might eventually cripple their ship. Time will tell.
College sports programs are firing fans like me by over-pricing their product relative to its value, by total bumbling NIL and transfer rules, and by failing to provide an enjoyable experience for revenue-producing sports, including the experience of watching games on television.
Before we moved from Fayetteville to Hot Springs two years ago, my wife and I had already dropped our tickets for UA football games and stopped going to men’s basketball games.
In football, parking and traffic are awful, the concourse on the West side of Razorback Stadium is over-crowded, the lines for concessions and restrooms are unreasonably long, and the seating in the stadium, unless you are in a higher-dollar section with chairbacks, is so tight you can’t squeeze a nickel between you and the fans beside you, in front of you, or behind you.
New Arkansas Coach Ryan Silverfield spoke recently about efforts to improve the game-day experience, and may God bless those efforts. But there are some things they can’t fix without doing two things that won’t happen anytime soon: demolish the West side of the stadium and start over and renegotiate the SEC’s contract with ESPN so that they never start a game in the afternoon in August or early September when it’s 100 degrees outside.
Even though UA basketball puts a good product on the court, we stopped going to those games mainly because of the parking, the post-game traffic, and the late-night tip-offs.
Even if you have a parking pass, you can expect a long wait to get back on the road after the game. If you don’t have a pass, your time in traffic is replaced with a long walk or slow public bus ride to the general vicinity of your vehicle. Start the game at 8:07 p.m. (for TV) and you might not get home (or to your hotel) until nearly midnight.
Then there’s the financial costs of attending games.
In addition to the face value of the tickets and the hostage fee (the mandatory donation), there’s parking (if you don’t have a pass), concessions, merchandise, and, for some, travel.
If you have the money to afford all of that, and we’re fortunate in that regard, you then have to decide if you’re getting enough bang for your buck. Sometimes, as Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek likes to say, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
A few years ago, for instance, we were at Universal Studios and spent less on lunch for six people than we spent a few weeks later for a meal for two at Baum Stadium. And everyone got more food in Orlando than we got in Fayetteville.
Speaking of Baum Stadium, until a few weeks ago, we still had four season tickets to UA baseball games. Now we’re told that our donation level only qualifies us for two seats, a bait-and-switch tactic that effectively doubles the price of our tickets. Plus, we might be moved to some other (less desirable) section in the stadium.
We’ve already made our donation for this year, so unless they’ll refund it, we’ll buy the two season tickets and sell them. Then we’ll stop donating, give up the tickets, and plan a vacation with the money we save.
We’re thinking Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Again, nae il will, as the Scots might say. Dinnae fash yersel.
(No ill will. Don’t worry yourself.)
The UA needs to charge big bucks for food, parking, tickets, and the right to sit in prime locations (or even in cramped, crappy conditions). And they need to let television networks make all the decisions about game times. That’s all part of the modern model for funding million-dollar coaches, million-dollar players, a few buildings full of administrators, regular facility upgrades, and all the other costs of running their programs.
For now, plenty of corporations and individual fans are willing to fund that model. They will overpay to attend games in person, subsidize payrolls and building campaigns, and stay up for televised games that start after 8 p.m. and include more time for commercials and official reviews than actual action.
The rest of us, I suspect, will cheer from afar, watch games on TV if we’re awake, and celebrate if our teams do well. I know I will. I just might do it from Northern Ireland and Scotland. Because whit’s fur ye’l no go by ye – what will be, will be.
Woo Pig.
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