While officials at the NCAA, the SEC, Mississippi State and Auburn are scrambling to determine if Heisman front-running quarterback Cam Newton is part of some pay-to-play scheme, officials at LSU are scrambling to assuage the fury of its Tiger zealots following news of the university’s new pay-to-park procedures.
It seems free game-day parking on LSU’s campus, starting next football season, is going the way of the free lunch.
In keeping with our evolving times, Athletic Director Joe Alleva used a mass e-mail to inform football ticket holders that today’s free on-campus parking spot is tomorrow’s $40 or $20 per-game parking spot [depending on location]. Those with a tailgating trailer will pony up an extra $50.
The good news, wrote Alleva, is that by charging on a per-game basis, rather than the more traditional season pass, folks can keep tailgating in their traditional spot—if they’re willing to pay. Had LSU stuck with tradition, parking assignments would have been made based on priority points, which, of course, are based on how much money you’ve previously donated to the LSU or TAF cause.
Every athletic director in recent memory has put his stamp on the balancing act that is the elbow-bending, gator-grilling thrill of watching Tiger football versus the arms-race demand for those Tigers to contend for national championships. Bob Brodhead began selling tickets to students, eliminating the right of passage that was fraternities sending their well-dressed pledges to the stadium six-plus hours before kickoff to reserve huge blocks of free seating in the student section. [Our pledges were fond of Section 22.] Joe Dean, with an assist from TAF, brought us luxury seating and the notion of mandatory donations being a precursor to purchasing pretty much any season ticket worth owning. And Skip Bertman brought us the “tradition” fee and a Saban-sized ticket price hike.
Alleva is simply leaving the boisterous confines of Death Valley in the quest for even more blood—er, cash—from the purple and gold congregation.
Yet why should actually being on campus be the only tailgating tradition to be taxed? Why stop there? How about …
• an Indian Mound sliding permit, $50 per child/per game,
• a tailgate tent fee, $20 for regular tents, $40 for jumbo canopies,
• a music fee to offset the damage booming bass beats are doing to the roots of LSU’s stately oaks, not to mention the broad magnolias, $100 for sound systems, $250 for those hiring a band,
• eliminating free access to public?restrooms and port-a-lets on campus and installing coin-operated locks, 50 cents per use [the fine for skipping this fee for a free on-campus pee, $250], or
• charging folks to climb aboard the bronze tiger statue in the west side parking lot for those ever-popular photo ops, $5 for children, $8.50 for adults.
If times get really tough, LSU could prevent fans from bringing their own tailgate grub and libations onto campus, instead “requesting” folks purchase their supplies from LSU-authorized retailers conveniently located at kiosks around campus.
Finally, as Facebook friend J Slater McKay suggests: instituting a $50 “weather control” surcharge to ensure that the chance of rain in Tiger Stadium remains … never!
Let’s be clear: While LSU’s athletic department, like every other university athletic department in America, is excessively greedy and on a never-ending quest to make another buck, that doesn’t mean Alleva is wrong for implementing this new policy. To paraphrase the teaching of Gordon Gekko, “Greed is good—especially when you’re in a BCS conference competing against cash-rich schools like Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.”
I simply wish officials would quit trotting out the same disingenuous reasons for needing to fleece the faithful [budget cuts, helping nonrevenue sports, enhancing the game-day experience] and tell us something we all know and can handle—the truth.
Simply say, “We believe in the free market principle of supply and demand. We’ve got something you demand so pay up. Why? Because that’s the price of multimillion-dollar coaching contracts and chasing football national championships. If you want free parking, go to Vanderbilt.”
Or, even better, “We need the money to buy us a quarterback like Cam Newton.”
