Budget & Finance

Texas District Eyes Extra Fee For Football Tickets

By Mark Walsh — December 04, 2002 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Add this to the list of ways high school athletics are mimicking big-time college and professional sports: A Texas school district is considering charging $50 per season for seat licenses in its football stadium.

The licenses would provide the buyer with the mere right to purchase season tickets for a specific seat. The per-game ticket price would be extra.

At Carroll Senior High School in Southlake, Texas, the number of fans willing to buy season tickets exceeds the number of prime seats available.

In fact, the Dragons football team is so popular that the 7,300-student Carroll district built a new stadium that seats more than 4,000 spectators.

But only 1,621 of those are so-called “green seats,” which are in the center section and are reserved for season-ticket holders. The waiting list includes 158 families who are seeking a total of 548 seats in that section.

Proposed Price Hike

The district formed a task force to study the issue because of the perception that it took years on the waiting list to get tickets and that some families were getting favored treatment.

As the task force’s recent report put it: “The joke was that you had to get your name on the list when you first conceived a child in order to have a seat when your child was ready to attend high school.”

The panel recommended Nov. 13 that season-ticket prices be increased from $12 to $15 per game. The panel also recommended that seat licenses be introduced at $50 a year or $90 for three years, and that the waiting list be abolished after a transition period.

Those recommendations will now be considered by the school board.

Such licenses are just one of several ways in which high schools are copying trends at higher levels of athletics.

Last summer, Vernon Hills High School in Illinois sold the naming rights to its new football stadium to a locally based paint manufacturer, creating Rust-Oleum Field.

“With the increased tightness in school budgets, athletic directors are going to be more creative in getting funds,” said Mark Cousins of the University Interscholastic League, the governing body for school sports in Texas.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the December 04, 2002 edition of Education Week as Texas District Eyes Extra Fee For Football Tickets

Events

Teaching Profession K-12 Essentials Forum New Insights Into the Teaching Profession
Join this free virtual event to get exclusive insights from Education Week's State of Teaching project.
Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and K-12 education jubs at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Budget & Finance Opinion Title I and IDEA Have Transformed Schools. What Comes Next?
Keeping the focus on children most in need will demand political chops from local leaders, write two researchers.
Paul T. Hill & Ashley Jochim
5 min read
Home is people. Concept of love, support and care. Family supports each other.
Aigul Garaeva/iStock + Education Week
Budget & Finance Trump's Tariffs Are Already Affecting Schools. Here's How
Higher prices due to tariffs are no longer theoretical for schools replacing technology—or even buying copy paper.
2 min read
A triptych photograph of a stack of papers against a blue background, a school bus against a blue sky, and an excavator on a pile of dirt. There is yellow tape covering the entire 3 photos with the word TARIFFS and the American flag repeated on the tape.
Getty
Budget & Finance Schools Are Already Seeing Higher Prices Due to Trump's Tariffs
Supplies that schools rely on are already becoming more expensive in some cases as a result of tariffs. They also cause broader uncertainty.
7 min read
Benjamin Franklin face from USD dollar banknote behind of torn paper with wording tariffs revealed.
Education Week and iStock/Getty