CEDAR CITY, Utah, May 15 - Southern Utah University has unveiled a new structure for season ticket and general ticketing for football and men's basketball. Known as priority seating, the system will provide members of the Thunderbird Club, SUU's official booster group, with the opportunity to reserve the best seats in Eccles Coliseum or the Centrum, through season-ticket purchases.

The new structure will require ticket buyers to join the Thunderbird Club at various levels in order to purchase prime season-tickets for football and men's basketball. The ticket structure for volleyball, women's basketball and gymnastic events will remain unchanged.

Ken Beazer explained the new system to a group of campus and community season-ticket holders Tuesday morning, noting the increased need for outside funding of the athletic department through avenues such as the Thunderbird Club and ticket sales.

"When you look at the chronological matriculation of intercollegiate athletics, as money became a bigger factor - and also the arms race started in Division I - the institutions turned more and more to their fan bases for ways to generate revenue," Beazer pointed out. "So they invented - or there was the birth of - priority seating, which has long been regarded as what the NCAA will call "best practices."

SUU is "the only football-playing Division I institution in the state of Utah that does not have some form of priority seating," Beazer said. With priority seating "you give priority to those who support you through your booster clubs. So what we've done with priority seating is ... to sit in certain areas, to get the best seats in the house ... there is a minimum donation level [required]."

Ticket prices for prime seating will also vary, as individual-game tickets will have a higher price than season tickets.

"There's going to be a minimum level of donation ... to buy seats at face value," Beazer explained. "All chair-backed seats [in Eccles Coliseum] will be $15 a game, if you buy season tickets. All other reserved areas are $10 for bleacher seating, the cement areas will remain $7; that's if you buy season tickets. General admission has not changed, whether it's season or you buy them on a per-game basis.

"If you buy single-game tickets, single game tickets are at a higher price than if you buy season tickets. A single-game ticket in the chair-backed area is $18 as opposed to $15, a single-game ticket in the bleacher seating is $12 rather than $10. Why we do that is we've tried to give a monetary reward to our loyal fans."

He further explained that single-game tickets will not be available prior to Aug. 15.

"We won't allow single-game ticket [sales] prior to August 15," he said. "On August 15 we will open all ticketing to single-game tickets. After August 15 [anyone] can go on-line and purchase the best seats available."

The same philosophy will hold true for men's basketball tickets. Although there are no bad seats in the Centrum, the priority seating tag will be applied to the first 12 rows in the sections outside the student section and will apply to all sections not reserved for students. 

Information on the new ticketing structure, as well as information on joining the Thunderbird Club, is available online at tbirdtickets.com, or information on ticketing is available through the Centrum ticket office at (435) 586-7872. The Thunderbird Club may also be contacted at (435) 865-8385.

-- SUU --