Varsity - The Official Digital Magazine of Wisconsin Athletics

Varsity - January 31, 2013

Varsity is the free Official Digital Magazine of Wisconsin Athletics, covering Badgers football, basketball, hockey and more each week.

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BEHIND THE DESK B A R RY A LVA R EZ • UW DIREC TOR OF AT H L ET IC S Making decisions with our fans as focus I 'm thrilled that we won't have to raise season ticket prices in football, men's basketball and men's hockey. These are not spur of the moment decisions. But they are a result of a process. After we take a look at our budget and see where we are fiscally ― and we don't use consultants like some schools ― we review where we stand as far as the rest of the Big Ten programs. By comparison to the rest of the league, we don't want to be at the top and we don't want to be on the bottom. We want to be somewhere in the middle. Right now, we're closer to the bottom than the top on ticket prices. Our people in the ticket office and our fundraisers will bring their information to our senior staff with recommendations and we will look at everything before we make a decision. This year, we just decided that we can go without an increase. If we can move forward and be fiscally responsible and not raise ticket prices, then that's what we're going to do. Last year was the first year we tiered the price of tickets according to the opponent, and we'll do that again this year. We're always talking to others in the business and trying to be creative. Every athletic department in the country is looking at its revenue sources. As I said earlier, we haven't used consultants. But that might be something to look at. We 14 » VARSITY JANUA RY 31, 2013 just haven't done that yet. No one wants to raise ticket prices. But there's a cost-of-living factor. I can remember buying gas for 10 cents a gallon in the old Nebraska days during the gas wars. Costs have changed, and there is the cost of doing business. But we try to be very sensitive to our fans. This year, we just decided that we can go without an increase. If we can move forward and be fiscally responsible and not raise ticket prices, then that's what we're going to do. That will be one of our considerations ― potential issues with our fans traveling to games ― when we begin to discuss conference realignment. The Big Ten athletic directors will meet in mid-February. Our commissioner, Jim Delany, said all along that when we came up with the divisions – the Legends and the Leaders – that it wasn't etched in stone. So when you add two teams from the East ― Maryland and Rutgers ― I think it's important that you consider the option of determining the divisions by geography. That only makes sense. We have our own concerns at Wisconsin. First of all, you want to preserve your natural rivalries. You want to maintain playing those rivals while striving for competitive balance within the divisions. I thought the Big Ten did a very good job in researching everything from the time that Penn State joined the league. It clearly showed that there were teams that separated themselves from others. But I want to play Iowa every year. I didn't like not playing Iowa the last two years. I know our fans didn't like it either. I want to continue to play Minnesota every year. I also want to play Nebraska every year. That has turned into a natural rivalry for us. Those games are important to our fans because they can travel to them. The athletic directors have had a good dialogue on all of this and we will continue to discuss and consider the various options for realignment before we make the recommendations to the presidents. I've said this several times before ― we have a really good group of athletic directors in the Big Ten. We agree to disagree at times, but we get along well and we always try to work things out. We're very open-minded. A lot of that has to do with the leadership of our commissioner. When all is said and done, our fans are a priority ― as they were when we decided not to raise ticket prices.

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