[Goose]

Think about it:  the team is on an unprecedented winning run, and attendance still sucks.  This latest move by the AD strikes me as a surrender of sorts:  "Well . . . we can't boost butts in seats, so let's just extract more from those who buy our premium seats."  That will help revenues.

Yeah, maybe, for a while . . .

I agree that it appears the AD is indeed going down that path. I am not happy about it, but I do understand why it may have some appeal. With the Stanford fan base however, I fear that the AD will fail to extract more actual revenue than would the present system because the (number of butts) times (revenue per butt) will be lower than it would have been if nothing had changed. That fact will be obscured by the natural odd-year increase and the fact that part of the money will move from the ticket pool to the donation pool.  The Department can say "ticket revenue is down, donations are up, we got more total bucks, so we did the right thing". But the total bucks would have increased anyway in an odd year, so the plan could really have been  a loser. It will unfortunately be credited with effects that are really from another cause. Then, in 2018, things really go down, but the AD says "Its is because it is an even year. Next year, more mandatory donations" and we spiral downward.

[Goose]

Think about it:  the team is on an unprecedented winning run, and attendance still sucks.  This latest move by the AD strikes me as a surrender of sorts:  "Well . . . we can't boost butts in seats, so let's just extract more from those who buy our premium seats."  That will help revenues.

Yeah, maybe, for a while . . .

I agree that it appears the AD is indeed going down that path. I am not happy about it, but I do understand why it may have some appeal. With the Stanford fan base however, I fear that the AD will fail to extract more actual revenue than would the present system because the (number of butts) times (revenue per butt) will be lower than it would have been if nothing had changed. That fact will be obscured by the natural odd-year increase and the fact that part of the money will move from the ticket pool to the donation pool.  The Department can say "ticket revenue is down, donations are up, we got more total bucks, so we did the right thing". But the total bucks would have increased anyway in an odd year, so the plan could really have been  a loser. It will unfortunately be credited with effects that are really from another cause. Then, in 2018, things really go down, but the AD says "Its is because it is an even year. Next year, more mandatory donations" and we spiral downward.