I also think part of the problem stems from a flooded secondary market and the school's switch from StubHub to SeatGeek as the secondary marketplace. Many people who buy season tickets only go to a game or two each year. If this game is not it, they resell their tickets. When demand sucks, the prices from the school look bad/inflated because the resale market is cheaper. I don't think people know to look on StubHub as I had my tix for Ohio listed there for weeks and saw no movement. This is the same thing that others saw as well. I listed great seats for much less than I paid for them and wound up having to dump them on StubHub the day before the game. The school could/should react to that by lowering the available seats in the primary market, but then they risk ****ing off the season ticket holders who paid more money and may not have better seats. It's a tough thing when your fan base is fickle and cheap.
I mean, for me, as a fan and not an employee of the athletic department, I just want to see a packed, loud, house. So my selfish math is easy... lower prices and get butts in the seats... to **** with everything else.
Now the economist in me, I'm happy to nerd out and look at it from the perspective of the school trying to maximize revenue. Part of that I can't really comment on because I'm not in the building and don't have the data they're using to crunch numbers, so I have to just assume that they're using a good model, and have put some thought behind what they're doing. But you're correct, that if the only thing you care about is following the math then yes, they should match the prices of the secondary market since, as you're selling the exact same product (tickets to the same game), the rational consumer is always going to choose the lower priced option. It's essentially a race to the bottom and the tickets are a commodity.
And I think that's the part that the school, and many other schools/pro teams/ concert people/etc struggle with... when people are basically legally scalping your product, that's got to be a tough pill to swallow. Say it's the reverse to what we have today (which I would think is more common), that StubHub prices are higher than what the school is selling for. That means the school is essentially leaving money on the table, and any good manager would look at that and say how can we cut the scalper out and stop them from competing with us selling our own product.
So I think part of it may be strategic, they're trying to fight the secondary market from bidding down the ticket price, and in general they're trying to price the tickets up to match what normally is a higher than retail secondary market.
As to the Miami fanbase... fickle, yes. Cheap? No, I don't think I necessarily agree with that. It's definitely more hot-and-cold than a maket like, say, Texas A&M's where I'm sure they have a more dependable, stable, group of people willing to buy season tickets every year no matter what.
And speaking of season tickets, your point about ****ing off the season ticket holders is another interesting ones and I could argue that either way. On the one hand, yes, what you're saying. On the other hand, whose fault it it that they bought when the market was high? If they're really going to be ****ed off because we're dropping the price for a particular game, then let them be ****ed off. If we win, then they'll make their investment back when the Clemson came comes around.
