We're at the captains level and have season tickets for MBB and WBB, MBB for 25 years and WBB for around 20. Had football tickets for 22 years but gave them up due to weather and scheduling issues---never quite sure when the games would be played because of television commitments. Two ways to think about costs for fans:
1. How you spend your money reflects personal priorities. We will renew next year but of our budgeted family expenses, only property taxes will be more than what we spend on ISU athletics (donation plus tickets). We will spend less on utilities, food (including restaurants), cars (tags, maintenance, gas), household repair, other budgeted donations. Our only greater budgeted expense will be health insurance and medical expenses. Is our expense for ISU athletics this high a priority? We will be doing some hard thinking. Everyone has different priorities but think about where ISU sports fits in.
2. We attend about 36 events a year, so our costs next year will be $70-$75 per person per event (ticket price plus donation divided by 36). Some events clearly are worth the price---conference basketball games, for example. But some nonconference basketball games are pretty awful, and sometimes the scheduling results in two games per day, which is a lot of basketball.
We do spend money on other nonbudgeted expenses such as vacations and donations depending on our financial situation but these vary widely from year to year.
Our sense is that ISU athletics is evolving into more of a corporate focus than for the average fan and university friend's support and attendance.
Your thoughts?
