Home     News     Obituaries     Sports     Dallas Cowboys     Features     Entertainment     Opinion     Classifieds

SPORTS Local Baseball Basketball Dallas Cowboys Football Golf Motor Sports Outdoors Recreation Soccer Tennis Tiger Woods Track and Field Other Sports

PRINT THIS PAGE | E-MAIL THIS PAGE Saturday, August 15, 1998 With 21 suites unsold, UT plans per-game leases AUSTIN (AP) -- With 21 of its new football stadium luxury skyboxes still unsold for this season, the University of Texas has approved a plan to lease the suites on a game-by-game basis. Prices would range from $8,000 per box for the New Mexico State, Rice, Iowa State and Baylor games, to $10,000 for Oklahoma State and $12,000 for Texas A&M under the plan approved by the UT men's athletic council. Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds told the Austin American-Statesman that the move would generate revenue and provide firsthand marketing so the suites don't go empty next season. Each suite seats 20 people and is supposed to lease for $50,000 per season. Jim Baker, assistant athletic director, said word already is getting around about the per-game leasing. "We've gotten quite a few calls in the last two weeks," he said. The stadium suites are a key to financing the $93 million expansion of UT's Royal-Memorial Stadium and adjacent athletic facilities. Private gifts will pay for about $30 million, with the school chipping in $12 million for a parking garage. The athletic department is paying for the remainder through ticket surcharges on football, baseball and men's and women's basketball and by issuing revenue bonds. Initially, school officials estimated they would need $4.6 million, with $2.6 million coming from the suites, to meet the annual debt service. To reach that goal, UT needed to lease 54 suites. However, Doug Messer, senior associate athletic director, said lower interest rates had decreased the payment to about $4.3 million. He said UT can meet its payment with the 43 suites already leased. There had been 66 suites available until earlier this summer. But UT converted the two suites nearest the south end zone into a Touchdown Club, with memberships selling for $3,500 per person each year. A large chunk of the club seats also are still available. David McWilliams, director of the Longhorn Foundation, said 550 of the 1,262 seats had been sold for foundation donations ranging from $1,250 to $3,000. Another 150 are expected to be sold by the start of the season, with the remainder being used by corporate sponsors. Dodds said the department had done a "tremendous job" of leasing the suites and club seats, although half the new seats have yet to be filled. "Keep in mind that we had to market these seats coming off a 4-7 (football) season," Dodds said. "We added 2,000 premium seats and of those 20,000, half have been sold, giving us a gross of more than $2 million."   Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story Send the URL (Address) of This Story to A Friend: Enter their email address below: texnews.com Reporter OnLine Local Sports Texas Sports Copyright ©1998, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications Send the URL (Address) of This Story to A Friend: Enter their email address below:

Search current site:        Search archives for:

© 1995- The E.W. Scripps Co. and the Abilene Reporter-News. All Rights Reserved. Site users are subject to our User Agreement. We also have a Privacy Policy.