Beaver fans are out there

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Oct 27, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (4 Reader comments)

SW / GETTY IMAGES

Fans start to file into Reser Stadium before last year's Oregon State-Cal game.

ADVERTISEMENTS

Oregon State plays its Homecoming game against Pac-10 opponent UCLA Saturday, and it’s not on television.

Sellout, right?

Not so fast. By Monday afternoon, 5,300 tickets remained for the Beavers’ Reser Stadium date with the Bruins. Reser’s capacity is listed at 45,674, so if no more tickets were to be sold, Saturday’s attendance would be just more than 40,000.

In three previous home games this season, Oregon State has been between 41,000 and 42,000, topping out at 41,979 for the Stanford game on Oct. 10. That’s down from a year ago, when OSU averaged 44,930 for home games with Hawaii, Southern Cal, Washington State, Arizona State, California and Oregon. Still, it’s on pace to be the second-best home attendance season in history, better than 2005 (41,083) and 2006 (41,374), the other seasons after Reser’s current expansion.

A couple of weeks ago, in an interview with several newspapers, Athletic Director Bob De Carolis vented about the situation.

“I’ve never seen a state like this, where you’re one or the other – a Duck or a Beaver,” De Carolis was quoted as saying. “If (Oregon State alums) are so proud of that, why is it so hard to keep this thing going? We have a hell of a football product ... and we can’t sell out the stadium? Where are all the Beaver fans?”

De Carolis knows better than anyone that there are plenty of factors that go into Oregon State’s attendance being down this year.

The economy is one. Discretionary spending is down across the board. That hasn’t seemed to matter 40 miles down the road in Eugene, where Oregon has sold out 54,000-seat Autzen Stadium 65 straight times, a streak dating back a decade. Still, it’s a fact of life, at least for now, in Corvallis.

Schedule is another. The 2008 slate of opponents at home was far more attractive than this year’s, which also includes a Nov. 14 date with Washington.

“The one that surprised me was Cincinnati, a top-20 team,” OSU associate athletic director Matt Arend says. “I thought we’d do better for that game.”

The opponents haven’t helped out with their own fans, either. Southern Cal and Oregon bring nearly 3,000 fans to games at Reser, California about 1,000. But Oregon State sold only 500 tickets to Stanford fans this season. Cincinnati sold 61.

“We’ve been nailed this year,” says Arend, who is hopeful Washington will sell 2,200 to 2,300 seats at Reser in a couple of weeks.

Season ticket sales this season are at just over 23,000, down 3.8 percent from last year.

Oregon State athletic department officials are preparing to make changes to stimulate football ticket sales as an adjunct to a more general goal to double the department’s donor base by 2012.

Aside from the student section on the east side of Reser, all sideline season tickets comes with a required donation to the Beaver Athletic Student Fund.

The 34 suites and the 55 loge-level seating are winners. One of the east-side suites is not sold on a season basis; all of the other suites – which sell from $38,000 to $40,000 per season – are sold out. The four-seat loge boxes – each requiring a $15,000 donation – are sold out, with a waiting list. In both cases, donations are in addition to the price of the seats.

OSU’s end-zone family plan has done well. Selling at half-price for adults ($126) and cheaper for youths ($110) with no donation, season-ticket sales this year are 2,600, more than double the 1,200 sold two years ago.

1 | 2 Next Page >>