Is UConn trying to copy schemes that professional sports teams use? I could see this kind of scheme working for small market teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder. NBA is 82 games, 41 home - so say you have 5 guys that share the tickets and each attend 8 games per year. So the license fee gets split and the 5 guys lock in their games every year with a mix of good and bad, but its kind of worth it. Other than the uber rich, I think most big city sports ticket pricing is supported by season ticket holders that are predominately multi-person shares AND the ongoing attraction of people that buy 1 game a year (think Red Sox in Boston, must-see tourist purchases & fans from throughout New England pay UP for their 1-3 games per year).
The HUGE difference they are missing is college hoop fans are season ticket holders that want to go to almost every game and generally don't share tickets in groups (maybe season tickets shared, but 1 person per seat).
And the donation thing is a separate fairy tale that people have bought into, now they've removed the pretend. People rationalized; "I'm doing an altruistic thing by donating to the school, even though mostly I know I'm doing it for good seats to basketball games." Now they've removed that justification and necessary pretense (to facilitate donations in excess of value of tickets) and made it cold, hard paying up solely for good seats to finance a good basketball team.
I understand there are wealthy boosters that have play money and they have always been the backbone of college athletics. I appreciate them! But now they are more or less asking the middle class to participate & pay their 'fair share' in this scheme (facetiously scam) and it just doesn't make economic sense, especially as the world evolves into paying ala carte for so many things (like watching UConn on ESPN+!).
