In Tight Times, Tech Baseball Is A Great Deal

By Laura Sposato
April 30, 2009

It's not Lane Stadium on a Saturday afternoon, but for a Virginia Tech sports fan, English Field is enough, and even better, it's free.

"Nothing is better than a Saturday at the ballpark," sophomore John Myers said. "Plus, here it's free and has everything I love about sports and Virginia Tech. They even have Enter Sandman and the Hokie Pokie."

With the recent economic troubles, students and adults are constantly searching for cheap entertainment and that may have a direct hit on the sports world. Attending sporting events can get expensive and that has many higher-ups in area sports concerned.

"Obviously people do not have money to spend like they have in the past," Salem Red Sox ticket manager Steven Elovich said. "... It is a little worrisome because people are tightening up their spending and coming out to a baseball game just is not a priority like it has been in the past."

Because of these facts, teams have begun to adjust their pricing to accommodate more peoples' budgets and keep them coming to the field. The Salem Red Sox are a perfect example of this. According to Elovich, the team will be offering special promotions nearly every night during the season, including themes like "Throwback Thursday" where fans can enjoy select $1 drinks and entertainment that will be "thrown back" to things like "One Hit Wonders, '80s, Disasters in Dance, etc..."

Other strategies that teams have evoked are as simple as lowering their prices. According to Elovich, the Red Sox made an effort to keep all the prices the same or lower. In fact, Elovich said that they cut the costs of all of their season-ticket packages.

"Ticket sales are actually going very well for us," Elovich said. "When you combine an affiliation change to the Red Sox and cut ticket prices, people are coming out despite the slow economy"

Effects of the economy are even being felt close to home in Virginia Tech's own athletic department. Randy King, a Virginia Tech football beat writer for the Roanoke Times, cited Virginia Tech Athletic Director, Jim Weaver, as saying that Virginia Tech teams are going to have to begin to cut down on air travel, busing teams to venues they've typically flown to. Despite this, King says he hasn't seen any drastic changes to Virginia Tech sports, or attendance yet, and he doesn't think he will.

"Football tickets for this upcoming season have been bumped from $44 to $48, King said. "[But] $4 is not going to keep the [Virginia] Tech football fanatics away from Lane Stadium. Also, gas prices actually have gone down since last fall. Even with gas prices at $3-plus per gallon, the droves of Hokie Nation kept making the trek to Blacksburg."

Season-ticket holders would tend to agree with King, and are definitely not being deterred by the economy. They see sports as an escape and an opportunity to enjoy family and friends.

"We never miss a game," Virginia Tech alumnus and eight-year season-ticket holder, Tim Rowe said. "The atmosphere is amazing, and it's a fantastic opportunity to hang out with the people you love and get lost in the game. You can't put a price on that."

According to King, neither of Virginia Tech's "major revenue-producing sports, football and men's basketball," took a hit at the gates last season.

"The football team sold out 66,233-seat Lane Stadium for all six games and the men's basketball squad sold out for 14 of its 16 home games," said King. "The only two games that didn't sell out were the two NIT games. Still, the team's average attendance at the 9,847-seat Cassell Coliseum was 9,414, which computes to 95.6 percent capacity rate."

However, not all of those seats were purchased. Virginia Tech offers a lottery system where students can enter on hokietickets.com to win free tickets to Virginia Tech home football and basketball games. Basketball and football aren't the only sports where free attendance is available, which is something students should take advantage of while it's the case.

"[Virginia] Tech baseball will be the next sport to charge for tickets if changes are made," King said. "The Hokies are one of the few schools in the ACC that doesn't charge for fans."

People in sports are well aware of the economic hardships that most people in America are facing. This is the reason they try so hard to make it possible for them to come out to a game, and are grateful when they do.

"It really means a lot to us as an organization to see people in attendance every game," Elovich said.  "We try and make an effort to meet the people who come out and spend their money on baseball because we all know that there are other things they could be spending it on.  So as a staff and a team, we want our fans to know how much we appreciate them and hopefully, we make their game experience enjoyable enough that they keep coming back throughout the course of the season."