Neutral Site Football Games Add New Revenue
Cleveland Browns Stadium
The University of Toledo is taking full advantage of a landmark opportunity for their Athletic Department. On September 19th, the Toledo Football team will be the “Home” team when they take on Ohio State at Cleveland Browns Stadium (Toledo is approximately 120 miles from Cleveland, while Columbus is just over 140 miles). Instead of playing the game in the Glass Bowl, which seats between 30,000-35,000 on the Toledo campus, Toledo officials arranged for the game to be played in the NFL stadium, with seating for over 70,000.
According to an article in Cleveland’s Plain Dealer, Ohio State is receiving 12,500 tickets for their use and the remaining 58,000+ tickets will be available to Toledo season ticket holders, Toledo students, and donors to the Toledo Athletic Department. Since Ohio State will likely bring many more than 12,500 fans, their fans willing to make the trip to Cleveland to see the game will have to donate to the Rocket Fund just to have the opportunity to purchase tickets. Given the dedication of Ohio State supporters in the past, it seems likely that thousands of OSU fans will be “supporting” their opponents in this game. According to the Rocket Fund website, $100 is the minimum level donation to receive benefits of the club.
This strategy used by Toledo will undoubtedly provide hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not more) to their athletic fund this year. In addition to the increased ticket revenue from the game itself, it seems that the idea of playing at a neutral site will pay off handsomely.
Other universities are venturing into the neutral site football game strategy as well. Northern Illinois University played to a sell-out crowd at Chicago’s Soldier field against Iowa in 2007, and already has plans for a game with Wisconsin in the Windy City in 2011. In their case, donors have first priority to the best seats in the house. Not only do these neutral site games allow for increased donations, but they also bring “out-of-town” football into the big city to connect with alumni and new donor prospects. With the recently expanded college football schedule, neutral site games will surely gain popularity for non-BCS schools as a new source of revenue.