Football: Season Ticket Sales Reach an All-time High
By BILL WAGNER, Staff Writer

August 17, 2005

Success on the field and a renovated stadium have helped Navy reach a new threshold for football ticket sales.

Capitalizing on consecutive winning seasons and back-to-back bowl game appearances, Navy has established a school record by selling 17,000 season tickets.

That shatters the previous standard of 12,000 season tickets, set last season. Prior to the arrival of athletic director Chet Gladchuk and head coach Paul Johnson in 2001, the academy was holding steady at 9,000 season ticket- holders.

"I would directly correlate this dramatic increase to Chet and Paul coming," said Matt Munnelly, Navy's assistant athletic director in charge of ticket operations. "Chet's vision for improving the stadium and Paul's success in turning around the program have excitement for Navy football at an all-time high."

Gladchuk has overseen a $40 million project that has given Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium a dramatic facelift. Johnson has taken a team that went 3-30 from 2000-2002 and led it to 18 victories the past two seasons.

Navy is coming off its first 10-win season in 99 years. The Midshipmen have won eight straight games at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.\

Innovative marketing strategies have also helped Navy promote its Saturday afternoon game experience. Munnelly and the marketing staff have moved boldly to take advantage of the buzz surrounding the program.

Navy initially began selling season ticket packages only last month. Fans who wanted to attend the opener with Maryland at M&T Bank Stadium, the home opener against Stanford or the rivalry contest versus Air Force had to buy the full plan.

"Certainly the fact we are playing Maryland for the first time in 40 years and that Air Force is coming to Annapolis for the first time since 1997 is a bonus," Munnelly admitted. "That put us in a good position. If fans wanted to guarantee good seats for those games, they needed to buy the season ticket package."

As further leverage, fans were reminded that regular season ticket holders will get first crack at tickets for the Navy-Notre Dame games being held in Baltimore in 2006 and 2008 along with the Army-Navy game in Baltimore in 2007.

Navy began selling single-game tickets this week and Munnelly said the phones have been ringing off the hook.

"We had five people answering calls and we never had less than six fans on hold the entire day," he said.

Navy has sold 28,000 of its 32,000 tickets for the Maryland game. Munnelly expects the remaining 4,000 seats to be gone by the end of this week.

Academy athletic officials are also expecting the Stanford and Air Force home games to be sellouts. Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium has a seating capacity of 34,000 with standing room only tickets increasing that figure by about 2,000.

"That we have reached this level of season tickets holders is a testament to the turnaround of Navy football and an indication the community is really embracing the program," Gladchuk said.

"We are very pleased, but we will not be satisfied until we have sold every seat for every game every season."

Published August 17, 2005, The Capital, Annapolis, Md.
Copyright © 2005 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.

Original article posted at:
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