U Of New Hampshire Athletics Looking For New Revenue Sources

UnionLeader.com, Allen Lessels

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120802/SPORTS/708029896

UNIVERSITY OF New Hampshire football players report for pre-season camp today and open the 2012 season four weeks from tonight against Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

On Wednesday, officials from the school’s department of athletics were looking a little further ahead — to Wildcat home games in football and men’s hockey — when they announced a program with a dual purpose, to enhance the game-day experience for fans and to generate funds for the teams.

“This is something most everyone else is doing and it’s really just having a strategy and making more scientific some of the things we’ve been doing,” said director of athletics Marty Scarano.

The idea is to create a priority parking system for football and men’s hockey as well as provide additional access to the Skybox Lounge at the Whittemore Center before and between periods of hockey games.

“Those are some benefits that are highly sought after,” Scarano said. “We’ve had starts and stops with this and we’ve had a priority points systems. Eric Nappy and Diane Metcalf (in the department’s athletic development office) have done a great job of making the program more succinct and communicating what we do and why we do it.”

The preferred parking and Skybox access plans revolve around donations to The Wildcat Fund, the collective annual giving program that allows donors to designate their gift to whichever Friends Group or team’s scholarship program they wish.

An annual gift of at least $1,000 to The Wildcat Fund for the fiscal year 2012-13 (July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013) is the first step toward the football priority parking pass. The pass itself is $125 and the deadline for purchasing it is Aug. 31.

Scarano said the passes were available prior to the official announcement of the program on Wednesday and nearly 20 had already been sold.

An annual gift of $2,500 to The Wildcat Fund is required to purchase a men’s hockey priority pass, which allows parking in a couple of lots closest to the Whittemore Center. The pass itself costs $500 and those who buy it must be season ticket holders.

The hockey pass also includes access to the Sky Box Lounge, where alcohol is available for purchase during pregame and intermissions.

Season ticket holders may also gain access to the Skybox Lounge by making an annual gift of $500 to The Wildcat Fund.

UNH’s trip to Montana State in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs last December provided athletics department officials with an idea for the football priority parking: They plan to personalize the parking spaces where football fans tailgate.

Scarano stressed that the funds from the parking plans go directly to the particular sport. There will be plenty of other parking available for those who don’t wish to participate in the priority programs, he said.

“We have not gone as far as seat licenses, but we do have priority points around seating,” Scarano said. “It’s the way athletics departments have to conduct business these days. In part, we’re responding to the fact the whole institution has taken severe reductions in subsidies from the state and we need to figure out ways to better generate revenue. We’ve cut about as far back as we can.”

More information on the parking plans is available by contacting Nappy at 603-862-0287 or [email protected].