Football season ticket sales eclipsed the 2003 total Wednesday, but only half of the student allotment has been ordered.
In 2003, Mississippi State sold 33,776 tickets. According to a press release, the ticket sales crossed 34,000 Wednesday.
In the release, athletic ticket manager Pat Wallace said: “The pace of season ticket sales has really picked up in the last few days and with that increase has come a steady jump in individual game sales as well.”
Technology is helping the ticket office supply its demand.
“We’ve tried to switch a lot of our ticketing to online. You can order regular season and individual game tickets online so we just thought it was natural to go ahead and do student tickets online too,” said assistant athletic director of special projects Mike Richey. “It streamlines the process for everybody.”
“You just needed to log into Banner Web using your Net ID, go to the personal information section and there’s a little button that says purchase football tickets. That’s all you have to do.”
Richey said emails had been sent to students, but no forms were mailed this year. The tickets can be ordered online through the end of Aug. 23.
“After that they will have to come to the ticket office and swipe their card. You can only swipe your ID and get your own tickets because you can’t charge something on someone else’s account.”
The number of student tickets that had been ordered at the beginning of the week was right at 5,000. Thanks to The Drill, a promotional event for football season (see 1A), the number of student tickets sold had reached 5,616 Thursday.
At the event, head football coach Sylvester Croom told students how big a role they can play in helping the team this season.
“You are part of the team. Six or seven plays will make the difference in a ballgame,” said Croom. “Each one of those lasts about six seconds so less than a minute will determine the outcome of the game. I am asking you to win one of those six plays for us.”
Croom said a noisy crowd could help the team by intimidating the opponent.
“Make that place an environment where they are worried about you instead of us,” he encouraged.
State opens its season Sept. 4 by hosting the Tulane Green Wave. The game starts at 5 p.m. and will be nationally televised on ESPN2. Everyone attending the game will be presented a maroon T-shirt at the gate.
“Our athletic director Larry Templeton decided with all the excitement around that first game it was a great chance to do a Maroon Out,” Richey said. “It’s very important that people put them on when we give them out because we want the Maroon Out for national television.”
“We’re doing that so you can come to the game ready to work–so you can come to the game ready to participate, rather than watch,” Croom told students Wednesday night.
“But you can’t come with your fine dresses on and your pretty blue ties. You can’t rest just before halftime or go to the bathroom just before halftime. You’ve got to come to work for 60 minutes.”
Richey expects the tickets to continue to sell because of the discounted price for student tickets.
“We’ve got 16,000 students on campus. There’s no reason we can’t sell 10 or 11 thousand. There’s seven games, 21 bucks for the whole season. All individual game tickets are $30 so you get the whole season for less than you would pay to get the Homecoming game,” Richey said. “Even if you are only going to make it to one or two games because you’ve got travel or need to do things with the family, you’re better off ordering the season ticket.”