http://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-of-tennessee-starts-sports-tickets-push-with-img-2011-05-31
...after years of seeing a steady decline in its football ticket sales, Tennessee has decided it’s time to turn professional, in ticket sales at least.
It’s the third Division I college, along with Duke University and San Jose State University, that in May signed with IMG College Ticket Solutions, a unit of the burgeoning IMG College division of sports and entertainment agency IMG Worldwide.
...IMG will bring in a general manager and build a staff of eight to 12 sales people by mid-June, all of whom will be focused full-time on selling tickets and providing customer care to ticket holders. Right now, Tennessee has seven people in its ticket office whose role is largely taking and processing ticket orders.
...The system appears to work, to judge by the experience of Temple University, which signed up to the program last year. Temple’s operation grew from what Eric Roedl, senior associate athletic director, called a one-and-a-half person ticket office to an IMG-hired general manager and four sales people who between them make 1,000 calls a week.
...The IMG team, which is typically based on campus, calls alumni, students’ parents, faculty and staff and also up-sells previous ticket buyers.
Roedl said last year Temple football ticket sales and revenue were up about 30% on the previous year. For the coming season, those figures are on course to see year-on-year growth of more than 100%. Temple recently signed a two-year extension with IMG.
...“We brought in a full-time staff focused on selling year-round and using client relationship management systems,” said DiFebo of his time at UCF. “We also incentivized the staff to sell.”
Under DiFebo, UCF’s football season ticket holders grew to 23,000 from 13,000, and revenue from total ticket sales rose by more than $4.5 million a year.
...IMG College Ticket Solutions is in talks with three other Division I universities, said a company spokesman, though he declined to name the schools.
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I sincerely hope that CU is one of the three schools in negotiations.
...after years of seeing a steady decline in its football ticket sales, Tennessee has decided it’s time to turn professional, in ticket sales at least.
It’s the third Division I college, along with Duke University and San Jose State University, that in May signed with IMG College Ticket Solutions, a unit of the burgeoning IMG College division of sports and entertainment agency IMG Worldwide.
...IMG will bring in a general manager and build a staff of eight to 12 sales people by mid-June, all of whom will be focused full-time on selling tickets and providing customer care to ticket holders. Right now, Tennessee has seven people in its ticket office whose role is largely taking and processing ticket orders.
...The system appears to work, to judge by the experience of Temple University, which signed up to the program last year. Temple’s operation grew from what Eric Roedl, senior associate athletic director, called a one-and-a-half person ticket office to an IMG-hired general manager and four sales people who between them make 1,000 calls a week.
...The IMG team, which is typically based on campus, calls alumni, students’ parents, faculty and staff and also up-sells previous ticket buyers.
Roedl said last year Temple football ticket sales and revenue were up about 30% on the previous year. For the coming season, those figures are on course to see year-on-year growth of more than 100%. Temple recently signed a two-year extension with IMG.
...“We brought in a full-time staff focused on selling year-round and using client relationship management systems,” said DiFebo of his time at UCF. “We also incentivized the staff to sell.”
Under DiFebo, UCF’s football season ticket holders grew to 23,000 from 13,000, and revenue from total ticket sales rose by more than $4.5 million a year.
...IMG College Ticket Solutions is in talks with three other Division I universities, said a company spokesman, though he declined to name the schools.
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I sincerely hope that CU is one of the three schools in negotiations.
