ATHENS — The cost of Georgia football tickets will go up next year. And they’ll cost a little more in 2027 as well.
That was news that Athletic Director Josh Brooks delivered to the UGA Athletic Association’s board of directors Friday as it convened at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education on campus for its fall semester meeting. Starting with February’s season-ticket renewal process, reserved seats for 2025 will cost $560 apiece, or $80 per game for seven home games.
That represents a $70 per season-ticket increase over the current prices. Also, there no longer will be a price differential between conference and non-conference games. Currently, UGA charges $55 for non-conference contests and $75 for SEC games. Starting next season, Georgia will charge $80 regardless of whether a game is non-conference or SEC. Georgia will have seven home games on its schedule, four of them SEC games.
Keep in mind, each ticket requires a minimum donation requirement to the Hartman Fund, which funds athletic scholarships and associated costs for Georgia’s athletes.
“We don’t take this lightly,” Brooks said. “Our development people aren’t pushing us about making money. We are very conscious about keeping (prices) reasonable. If you look at the secondary market, you could get real greedy real fast. We could charge a lot more for tickets. But I believe if you gouge people, you can hurt yourself from a development standpoint. We try to take care of our people and do them right with concessions, parking and tickets.”
Credit: Chip Towers
Credit: Chip Towers
Georgia has some of the lowest concession prices in the SEC, including $3 for 1/5-pound hot dogs, Brooks said.
There are some reserved parking changes as well. Georgia will require a lower donation threshold to qualify for parking, but is in the process of locating many more reserved spaces on campus. Athletics is working with UGA parking services to increase the number of spaces that are available on game day. That price point actually will drop to $1,500 when all is said and done. Currently it is a $2,500 minimum to the Hartman Fund to secure reserved parking. Space availability has not been finalized.
“UGA was not valuing parking the way our donors value parking,” said Ford Williams, UGA’s executive director for development and ticket operations. “So, we’re creating price stratification through parking based on proximity to the stadium. Also, with that, we’re lowering the minimum to receive parking.”
With all the recent changes surrounding college football – including revenue sharing, the potential NCAA anti-trust settlement agreement with players and the competitive arena of name, image and likeness compensation – there is more pressure than ever for Power 4 programs like Georgia to produce revenue streams.
Credit: Photo courtesy of University of Georgia
Credit: Photo courtesy of University of Georgia
Meanwhile, the price hike should not come as too much of a surprise considering the spiraling cost of everything in the current economy. But when it comes to the pricing of UGA football tickets, the Bulldogs have been especially conservative about raising the cost for its loyal season-ticket base. Next year’s price hike will be only the third since 2005, and Georgia claims it remains in the bottom third of the SEC in both the per-seat, face-value charges for tickets and minimum donation requirements for the right to obtain them.
Each season-ticket holder received a personalized email Friday informing them of their current contribution status and what it will be in 2025.
“We’ve been very methodical in this process,” Williams said. “This has taken us over two years to go through. We started this in the fall of 2022. Even after this pricing change, we remain in the bottom third of the conference. That is not just the ticket cost. That is when you combine the contribution and the ticket as a total package. That’s how each of our peer institutions are doing it.”
Texas and Texas A&M currently have some of the highest ticket prices in the SEC. The Longhorns withhold 60,000 tickets for students, but students typically have to pay more than $100 a game for their seats.
Georgia’s price hike does not include students. The Bulldogs retain a minimum of 16,000 seats for students and can accommodate as many as 21,000 a game. Students pay $10 per game for them.
Demand for Georgia season tickets has been high over the past five years. The Bulldogs have won 47 of their past 49 games under coach Kirby Smart, including two national championships. Georgia has not lost a regular-season game since the 2020 season.
The price of some seats will remain the same and a small percentage will actually go down in price. Williams said median price difference of all tickets within Sanford Stadium will increase only about $270. Prices in the 600 level, Sanford’s uppermost location on the north side, all decreased slightly. Tickets in the east-end 300 section also went down or stayed the same, Brooks said.
“We believe it’s a better stratification of ticket prices,” Brooks said. “Just as we’ve held strong on concession prices, we want to keep ticket prices as attainable for as many people as possible.”
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