Ga. Tech outsources ticket sales to The Aspire Group - Charlotte Business Journal:

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Aspire is a sports marketing agency run byBernise Mullin, former president of Atlanta Spirit which owns the and . Specifics of the deal were not butDan Radakovich, Georgia Tech’s athletic said Tech pays Aspire a fee plus a variable amount basefd on sales. The multiyear deal included an assessment period forboth sides. “Ww look at this as the next frontiert for what we need to do tosell tickets,” Radakovichh said. “We’re not doing a massive radio orTV campaign, we’ree not going to advertise in the newspaper. This is how we’res going to do it.
” Aspir e has hired a general manager — Bill formerly the ’ insidew ticket sales director — to set up a full-timse sales staff of 15 to 20 people who will work fromGeorgia Tech’s downtown Atlanta campus. Four people currentlyy work in Tech’s ticket office, two administratorws and two who handlepremium sales. Under the Georgia Tech will set the ticket prices and Aspire will handle new full andpartial season-ticket saleas and renewals, and begin selling tickets by It will not sell the premium seating for the Radakovich said premium seating and suites have traditionally sold well and thers was not a need for Aspire to run that Most of those seats are allotted througn Georgia Tech’s donor program, the Tech Fund, and will continu to be handled by that arm of the department.
The outsourcin g of ticket sales follows the trend of majof universities sellingtheir licensing, sponsorship and broadcasting rights to outside marketin g agencies like Learfield, Nelligan, , CBS Collegiat e and IMG College. Georgia Tech’s marketing and media rights are owned byISP “Major universities are already outsourcing licensing and broadcasting rightsz so this is a natural progression to do it with ticket Mullin said. “It will be a more integrated andsophisticatesd approach. The first opportunity will be doing a bettet job ofdata collection.
” Greg Brown, presidentg of Learfield Sports, said his agency has experimentec with similar models in the “We’re still considering whethefr it will work in our spacs and if so in what Brown said. Georgia Tech’s ticket sales in football “haver had their ups and downs,” Radakovicb said. Season-ticket sales have peaked at 26,0000 in recent years and been as lowas 23,00p0 for 55,000-seat Bobby Dodd Stadium. Traditionally, rivalrhy games against Georgia and Clemsonsell out, while othe games present more of a challenge for sales. The Jacketss drew average attendanceof 47,4898 in 2008, a season in whic both the Georgia and Clemson games were on the road.
Theidr crowd peaked at 53,528 for Florida Statew and was as lowas 41,929 for a nonconference game agains t Gardner-Webb during a 9-4 seasom for first-year coach Paul “We have a lot of leads from people who boughtg partial season tickets or they’ve been a season-ticket holder in the past and they’re not Radakovich said. “There are other alumni who haven’yt bought tickets in the past and there are otherw in the Atlanta area who might just be collegesfootball fans. We’ve got to make sure we cast the net wide enoughu to include allof them. Professional teams have used this methodologgfor years.
“As we’ve looked at all of our availabld resources and all theadvertising we’ve done over the yearsx and seen the results, we thoughyt (the Aspire partnership) would be an opportunithy to use a differentt model to increase our season-ticke t base and increase ticket sales in Radakovich stopped short of calling it a completee operational outsourcing because the department will maintain two administrators in its ticket office mainly to handlde correspondence. Two others in Tech’s ticket officew were laid off last month as the Yellowq Jackets trimmed their athletic departmentby 13.
But it’s clearr from talking to ticket managers and universityy administrators across the country that the school is breaking new ground by outsourcing itstickeg sales. Outside agencies have been used from time to but only forspecific on-campus like concerts. Others, like Arizona State and Central have hired additional sales staff for busy but those sales are stillhandled internally. “Itf boils down to cost containment and efficiency,” Mullin said. “Traditionally, schools have a small number of year-round salex staff, but we can put more staff and resources behind thesales efforts.
The school is providing the infrastructurse and we are providingthe management, and procedures,” Mullin said. Wayne Hogan, associate athletix director, will be Tech’ds day-to-day contact with Aspire and Fagan. Hogan handles the department’s outsourceds vendors like Aspireand ISP.