2024 Seating Changes

[UpstateSM]

So not only am I being displaced but I need to donate at least $400 to have any confidence that I will have good options to choose from when I have to pick new seats?

 

[GreekFreak]

I don’t mind change, it is a constant. I also am not overly troubled by the price increase. What I can’t accept is paying for seats BEFORE I KNOW WHERE THEY ARE! This to me is arrogance on SU’s part and taking their entire customer base for granted. I have been a season ticket holder since 1981. I have my wife about 50% convinced to drop them and I won’t look back. Lots of other things to do in the fall besides SU Football and leaf raking.

 

[upperdeck]

So not only am I being displaced but I need to donate at least $400 to have any confidence that I will have good options to choose from when I have to pick new seats?

Thats were keeping people in the dark is bad..

there is no reason the site cant tell you more about where you stand.

Even in the donor ranking if it says you are #2500.. It would also know how many seats currently ahead of you in ranking pts if everyone renewed. It wont be perfect. It would also know how many seats ahead of you in the sections you are in..

I mean if 5000 seats are ahead of you in ranking but in levels 2-3 sections higher you dont really care..

Since the vast majority of people are in the 2 lowest donor rankings its really in flux. And since many of those are BBALL people that muddies it even more.

 

[Consigliere]

Mark

Who is ahead of whom here:

$150 donor with 20 priority points vs
$300 donor with 10 priority points?

My understanding is priority points is the most important thing with each donor classification.
So...the $150 fan picks first. Amirite?

Well,…..maybe. It would depend on how they factor in longevity. If the $300 donor has enough additional longevity they could conceivably move ahead of the donor who currently has more priority points.
But all things being equal you are correct. As long as you are within the same giving level it is points that determines your priority.

 

[Consigliere]

where does it state that donating money moves you up inside a rank though and how much? Say you have like 50 priority pts within Varsity. DO you throw $100 at it and wait and see if you move up? Then $100 more? You dont really know if it will move at all since there is nothing showing how far ahead or behind you are. Is a $1 donation the same as a priority pt?

Like my level says i have 1 priority pt. Season pts are capped at 20 yrs so shouldnt that be like 20 or some number other than 1?

Longevity credit has not been applied yet. Nor have the mechanics of that credit been revealed.
You receive 1 priority point for every $100 given to Athletics in a current year. This can be a general donation or one directed to a specific sport. You get 1 priority point for every $1000 in lifetime donations to Athletics. And you receive 1 priority point for every $5000 in lifetime donations to the University. There is also a premium with points awarded for donations to the Legends Society. Can’t recall that amount right now.
Can’t really tell how much an extra donation and associated points award will move you up because it is ordinal - it depends on what every other donor is doing.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Generally to acquire these seats you have to prove that you need the ADA and can’t be sold to anyone, especially seasons

Agree, not seasons. I have sat in ADA seating at MSG before. The tickets opened late on Ticketmaster. I didn't even know they were ADA until I sat in them. I think the venue can offer them to anyone after a certain amount of time if there is nothing else available. That only applies to maybe 1 game a year in the Dome though.

If the Dome is otherwise sold out, I don't think SU is required to keep 250 empty seats.

 

[upperdeck]

• when all non-accessible seats have been sold (excluding luxury boxes, club boxes, suites, and seats the venue holds back when declaring a sell-out); or
• when all non-accessible seats in a particular seating section have been sold, unsold accessible seats in that section may be released; or
• when all non-accessible seats in a particular price category have been sold, unsold accessible seats in that price category may be released.

so its not just when sold out it sold it within that section/level of seating.

and from what i read up to 3-4 people can sit with the ADA seat..

 

[Consigliere]

Yeah, this part is misleading too. I don't know where the season ticket priority points are hidden but they're not on the donor rank page.

I have priority points for prior year giving, but nothing listed for the 15 years I've had with the same season ticket. My priority points are 9 total (I used to give a lot more before these kids starting sucking all the money out of me like a vacuum).

On the right side of the Donor Rank page you see your priority points based on component - current year and lifetime. Your current year giving to athletics is 1 point for every $100 you paid for the donation portion of your season tickets plus any additional donations to the CAF including gifts to specific sports. If you are on a payment plan, points will only accrue as payments are made.
Your annual giving level in the middle of the page is the total amount committed for the current year. As soon as you commit to renew you are credited with the full donation amount even if you haven’t made every payment yet. Annual giving amount also includes any general gifts to Athletics NOT including specific sports directed gifts.

 

[JRHEETER]

Thats were keeping people in the dark is bad..

there is no reason the site cant tell you more about where you stand.

Even in the donor ranking if it says you are #2500.. It would also know how many seats currently ahead of you in ranking pts if everyone renewed. It wont be perfect. It would also know how many seats ahead of you in the sections you are in..

I mean if 5000 seats are ahead of you in ranking but in levels 2-3 sections higher you dont really care..

Since the vast majority of people are in the 2 lowest donor rankings its really in flux. And since many of those are BBALL people that muddies it even more.

Right but it doesn’t help them get additional donations if you know you don’t need to donate

So it benefits the university to keep all of us in the dark about that

 

[Consigliere]

Right but it doesn’t help them get additional donations if you know you don’t need to donate

So it benefits the university to keep all of us in the dark about that

To be fair, they are in the dark too as this is a dynamic ranking. They do tell you how much you need to donate to move up a level on the donor rank page, but the last thing they should do is tell people that they can donate $400 and move from a donor rank of 2503 to a rank of 1190 then have fans at the same level send in a payment and you end up at 1900. No matter how much they qualify the information many will only hear $400 guarantees me a rank of 1190 and feel they have been lied to.

It’s really not much different that a silent auction for your slot.

 

[GoSU96]

The whole thing will look really good on TV. And it's a TV show.

Yep, been saying that for years.

 

[upperdeck]

To be fair, they are in the dark too as this is a dynamic ranking. They do tell you how much you need to donate to move up a level on the donor rank page, but the last thing they should do is tell people that they can donate $400 and move from a donor rank of 2503 to a rank of 1190 then have fans at the same level send in a payment and you end up at 1900. No matter how much they qualify the information many will only hear $400 guarantees me a rank of 1190 and feel they have been lied to.

It’s really not much different that a silent auction for your slot.

Maybe..

But its also a moving target and people can be made aware of that. Here it seems like people are more about donations within a rank than changing to a new rank..

the fuzzy stuff is the pts allocation. how do you move with a rank other than # of yrs. of tickets and if money does that for more than a pt a time..

Once you get to 20 yrs you stall out.. How many of those do we have who knows.. Seems like a decent number of people on here have stalled out.

But even then a one yr donation to get to a new level doesn't mean you get your seats next yr if you don't donate as you will drop back next yr and maybe get bumped again and that will piss people off too..

the people at the higher priced seats not such a big deal as the seat donation will keep you where you are.

But the 70% of people in the lower 2 rankings if you move up now and you lose that ranking next yr, how many of them are throwing $500 a yr at this to stay in that seat?

The seat volatility will be crazy now, where all the yrs 35 that i have had tickets I never moved more than a seat or 2 any way . Now I could pay $500 keep my current seat and lose it next yr.

 

[JRHEETER]

Maybe..

But its also a moving target and people can be made aware of that. Here it seems like people are more about donations within a rank than changing to a new rank..

the fuzzy stuff is the pts allocation. how do you move with a rank other than # of yrs. of tickets and if money does that for more than a pt a time..

Once you get to 20 yrs you stall out.. How many of those do we have who knows.. Seems like a decent number of people on here have stalled out.

But even then a one yr donation to get to a new level doesn't mean you get your seats next yr if you don't donate as you will drop back next yr and maybe get bumped again and that will piss people off too..

the people at the higher priced seats not such a big deal as the seat donation will keep you where you are.

But the 70% of people in the lower 2 rankings if you move up now and you lose that ranking next yr, how many of them are throwing $500 a yr at this to stay in that seat?

You can’t get bumped the following year.

Once you have your seats you can drop back down to the normal donation required for those seats and just renew year after year

This is why we keep saying that using donor level to determine the choice of order isn’t a good way to do it. You can game the system to beat out long time fans.

If they used actual donor rank/priority points it would include LIFETIME giving (longevity) as well as using points for this last year of giving.

Syracuse than could give the extra points for having seasons longer which would encourage longevity even more

However, Syracuse is NOT using that system as the most important criteria

 

[upperdeck]

You can’t get bumped the following year.

Once you have your seats you can drop back down to the normal donation required for those seats and just renew year after year

This is why we keep saying that using donor level to determine the choice of order isn’t a good way to do it. You can game the system to beat out long time fans.

If they used actual donor rank/priority points it would include LIFETIME giving (longevity) as well as using points for this last year of giving.

Syracuse than could give the extra points for having seasons longer which would encourage longevity even more

However, Syracuse is NOT using that system as the most important criteria

Ok.. but I thought they said the process started all over every year from scratch. You are saying just 1 yr of chaos and then back to renew as usual..

Then why go through all of this at all. We are adding issues for a the gain of what a few hundred K?

No one should be gaming the system to get better seats now when you cant next yr.

 

[Consigliere]

No intention to repeat this ever again. Once this is complete for 2024 the renewal process will revert to previous process. One time exercise out of necessity. Some of our ACC brethren and peer institutions DO reseat every year.

The longevity bonus is new and is also a one time thing. Issue with the as is system there is that it is only recently (since 2019?) that all season tickets carry a donation portion. So even though there is a component for lifetime giving in the priority points calculation, you only get credit for buying seasons prior to 2019 if you bought in the much more limited preferred sections - essentially the current A and B level.

 

[David321]

Is it just me or does it seem like they move the student section around a lot? This is the second change in three years. It’s understandable how this time it’s being treated as a new venue, just hope going forward they won’t bump people again due to that.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

No intention to repeat this ever again. Once this is complete for 2024 the renewal process will revert to previous process. One time exercise out of necessity. Some of our ACC brethren and peer institutions DO reseat every year.

How about the parking lottery?

Will that continue every year as well?

 

[JRHEETER]

Is it just me or does it seem like they move the student section around a lot? This is the second change in three years. It’s understandable how this time it’s being treated as a new venue, just hope going forward they won’t bump people again due to that.

They haven’t moved the student section in as long as I can rememver

They expanded it recently

 

[Consigliere]

How about the parking lottery?

Will that continue every year as well?

That is the intention. No issue with that as it is an annual benefit and supply of decent parking spots is plentiful….

….for now.

 

[JeremyCuse]

How about the parking lottery?

Will that continue every year as well?

Yes, that's going to happen in perpetuity.

 

[TexanMark]

Well,…..maybe. It would depend on how they factor in longevity. If the $300 donor has enough additional longevity they could conceivably move ahead of the donor who currently has more priority points.
But all things being equal you are correct. As long as you are within the same giving level it is points that determines your priority.

Ok that is a key point...sounds like we'll know that calculus soon.

 

[upperdeck]

No intention to repeat this ever again. Once this is complete for 2024 the renewal process will revert to previous process. One time exercise out of necessity. Some of our ACC brethren and peer institutions DO reseat every year.

The longevity bonus is new and is also a one time thing. Issue with the as is system there is that it is only recently (since 2019?) that all season tickets carry a donation portion. So even though there is a component for lifetime giving in the priority points calculation, you only get credit for buying seasons prior to 2019 if you bought in the much more limited preferred sections - essentially the current A and B level.

Imagine the fun someone could have with this

Say you are a big donor high up and you buy some number like 10 tickets in the best section.. You could in theory say screw it I am taking that same money and buying a whole section in 303 for the same money and sit with my 10 friends and eat the rest of the tickets..

they also take the 10k donation and buy all those seats as well and just keep them empty and force a lot of upperdeck $100 people to buy up.

 

[JRHEETER]

Also an important piece that MOST of you are missing is that your previous seats, NO LONGER EXIST

Although you’re “renewing” this season, you WILL be picking new seats, somewhere in the dome, no matter what.

Your seat is NOT and will NOT be held and no longer exists.

If someone selects earlier than you and they happen to choose your seat, it’s now that persons seat.

So while a lot are being displaced due to the student section, others MAY be displaced as well

 

[Newhouser]

I don’t mind change, it is a constant. I also am not overly troubled by the price increase. What I can’t accept is paying for seats BEFORE I KNOW WHERE THEY ARE! This to me is arrogance on SU’s part and taking their entire customer base for granted. I have been a season ticket holder since 1981. I have my wife about 50% convinced to drop them and I won’t look back. Lots of other things to do in the fall besides SU Football and leaf raking.

I don't even mind paying prior - but the fact that they don't have a plan to refund anyone who is not happy is insane and typical of SU Athletics. Arrogance.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Also an important piece that MOST of you are missing is that your previous seats, NO LONGER EXIST

Although you’re “renewing” this season, you WILL be picking new seats, somewhere in the dome, no matter what.

Your seat is NOT and will NOT be held and no longer exists.

If someone selects earlier than you and they happen to choose your seat, it’s now that persons seat.

So while a lot are being displaced due to the student section, others MAY be displaced as well

This is a critical piece that I don't believe most fans understand. Keep this in mind when making any decisions.