Single-game Cougars tickets go on sale Monday

PULLMAN – Season-ticket sales for Washington State University football games are off slightly from the record set in 2004, with single-game seats going on sale at 8 a.m. Monday morning, one month before the season opener against Idaho.

As of late Friday afternoon WSU had sold 14,208 out of a possible 16,000 season tickets, making the likelihood of selling out every ticket slim. But Dan Meyer, WSU’s director of ticket operations, is still pleased with the sales.

“What we traditionally find is that in non-Apple Cup seasons we have a dip because people go away for a year and come back for the Apple Cup year with their season-ticket purchase,” said Meyer, referring to the fact that WSU plays Washington in Seattle this season. “We’re doing all right.”

Last season, on the heels of three 10-win seasons, the Cougars sold a school-best 15,424 season tickets and ending up with a waiting list for tickets as they failed to make enough seats available for season tickets to meet demand. In 2003, without an Apple Cup game in Pullman, WSU sold 12,800 season tickets.

To compensate for the increasing demand, the school blocked off additional seats for season tickets this year. But it appears that matching last year’s record total would be about the best-case scenario at this point, according to Meyer.

“I think if we get pretty close to our 2004 goal I would be very happy and if we exceed it we should feel tremendous about where we’re at as a program,” he said. “Here we are coming off … a 5-6 no-bowl season, we were kind of bracing for the fans to show if this is a dependent-on-the-success-of-the-team kind of program or if this is a program that has reached a plateau where people will buy their season tickets regardless. Right now we’re 1,400 ahead of where we were in ‘03.”

Season-ticket packages are still available at all price ranges, from a base of $185 to a maximum of $1,235 for a few seats still left under cover on the 50-yard line. After taking away the 12,500 seats allotted for students, the school will be selling about 7,000 single-game seats for each of this year’s five games in Pullman.

Tickets for single games can be purchased in person at the Cougar Depot in Pullman or over the phone at 1-800-GO-COUGS. And for the first time, they are also available online at wsucougars.com. Reserved seats are $35 for all games except Oregon, which will sell for $45. End-zone seats are $23 for adults and $15 for children.

Meyer said it’s possible more single-game seats will come available if season-ticket sales aren’t overwhelming. But with the possibility still there of breaking last year’s record, Meyer and his office plan on being aggressive to try and sell those packages first.

“As we go forward, we’re going to base our decision, that if season tickets aren’t being sold and it’s getting close to that first game we may start pulling that number down,” he said. “But we certainly want to give ourselves room to exceed last year’s total if we can get hot this last month.”