I spoke a few minutes ago with John Hartwell, the associate athletics director for finance.
Regarding pay-per-view for these non-televised games, the stance of the university is to do nothing that takes away from the game-day experience.
That means if there are tickets available, and a pay-per-view telecast might encourage potential ticket-buyers to stay home, it’s not going to happen. Hartwell did not rule out pay-per-view in the future, but basically, this will be a non-issue when the new TV deal kicks in next year … as long as you have all of the ESPN channels. Hopefully our Tupelo Comcast folks will offer that next year.
On the subject of football scheduling, Hartwell said he expects Ole Miss to fulfill its contract with Memphis next season. The game will be the Rebels’ only non-conference road game. Southeastern Louisiana and UAB will fill two of the other slots.
A third non-conference deal, possibly with a BCS conference foe, is being negotiated.
— PA
djrebel.wordpress.com 
September 30, 2008 at 4:18 pm |
PA, this pay-per-view stance makes no sense for conference games that routinely sell out. If you can’t show Memphis and Samford, fine, but taking a regionalized view instead of marketing to fans across the country who could get caught up in the season, make donations, schedule trips to games, buy merchadise, BUY PAY PER VIEW (!) is just small-time thinking, as usual, by our marketing dept.
I come to one home and one road game per year, and I just want to watch the Rebels! We just beat Florida, why would you not capitalize on this! I just don’t understand why we always make the wrong marketing moves (ahem- daytime fireworks, the emabarrasing mascot contest).
On a positive note, today is the one-year anniversary of me posting right here that we should hire Houston Nutt. Remember? You pooh-poohed it, as I recall.
Thanks for the great coverage!
Cheers,
Will
September 30, 2008 at 4:34 pm |
All you people crying about PPV is for the birds. Buy some season tickets like the rest of us. The fact of the matter is this, if we win enough games, we won’t have to worry about PPV, we’ll start worrying if ESPN or CBS will pick up the games. So, more support from Rebel Nation=More Money to the University=Better facilities=Better Recruiting=Wins=National TV=Better Recruiting=More wins and the cycle continues. BUY SEASON TICKETS. I HAVE EVEN WHEN WE WERE 0-8 in the SEC, and when we went 7-1 in the SEC. You have no room to complain until you are part of the PAYING consumer, your not a paying consumer when you don’t buy season tickets. We haven’t sold out a game this year, SEC or non-conference. We won’t sell out a game this year either, because Alabama and LSU are on the road. If more Ole Miss fans would buy season tickets, we may have sellouts, PERIOD. Then PPV may come into play. I agree with the University on this one. Not the other two that you metion though. I’ve got 2 kids under 2, and a 2.5 hour drive, but I make arrangements to support Ole Miss, why can’t you? Come to the games, it’s more fun when ALL OF YOU ARE THERE!!!!!
September 30, 2008 at 4:49 pm |
Us poo ole retired AF sgt’s can afford PPV nor season tickets, we must rely on cable / satellite dish and the great service that PA provides for us. Thank you PA.. We not complaining – we just happy that the Rebels are showing off a bit like in old times. GO REBELS
September 30, 2008 at 5:15 pm |
Will, I really don’t remember poo-poohing on your Nutt post. Sorry bout that.
Early indications are that Saturday’s South Carolina game will not be a sellout.
Matt, how many games do you make it to these days?
Jimmy, I appreciate your encouragement as always.
— PA
September 30, 2008 at 5:18 pm |
I agree that if you live nearby, it is best to buy season tickets, however if you live over 10 hours away (like I do), buying season tickets isn’t really an option. I did make the two hour hike to Wake Forest though. It is nice to see the Rebels play on TV, when you can’t make it to the games. I would definitely rather see them play on ESPN, CBS, etc., but I’ll take pay-per-view if that’s my only option.
September 30, 2008 at 5:31 pm |
M4 rebs,
How about the rebel fans who want to see the game that live some distant from Oxford? As for myself, I buy 4 season tickets every year. However I can only make a couple of games. The 6+ hour road trip to Oxford does not work out for me each home game as I would like; work often being the deterant. I do give away my tickets to friends for the games which I am so dissappointed in missing! But I would love to watch the game on CBS, ESPN, PPV or any other option availble for the games I can not attend. I know the are numerous other across the country with circumstances much like mine. I guess the athletics department did not consider us when making this decision, and it’s extremly frustrating!!!
September 30, 2008 at 7:54 pm |
M4rebs,
If I lived within 2 1/2 hours, I would buy season tickets. But for people who live 5 and 6 hours away, we simply can’t buy season tickets. We try to buy tickets to the nearest away game. With the price of gas, hotel rooms, and tickets, it’s financially impossible for some people to purchase season tickets. For me, I also have a wife working on a doctorate which is not cheap. Not to mention the past several years we have had one or two children in college. Pay for view would also put money in the University. I love Ole Miss and support them 100% of the time. But buying season tickets right now is out of reach for me. So, I’ll just try to go to the close away games and hope the others are on television.
Jeff
September 30, 2008 at 8:39 pm |
I knew this would cause a stink, but I felt compelled to say what I thought because I know 90% of the folks complaining about TV are close enough to go and/or can make the effort to buy single game tickets that are READILY available EVERY GAME. Alabama games are sold out, regardless of the opponent, and when we get to that point, that is when everybody will start giving additional options for seeing the Rebs. I understand the 6+ hour trips to not make every game, but I lived in Baton Rouge for 4.5 years and didn’t miss an SEC home game for sure, and only like 2 nonconference games. Granted, that was before the kiddos, but I made a sacrafice in carrer to get my family back closer to what we enjoy doing, and that was family, friends, and Ole Miss. Now that we live in Tuscaloosa, we make all SEC home games, plus Memphis. I make the game in Tuscaloosa (and in BR when I lived there) and when the boys are old enough to use the bathroom, not in their pants, I plan on taking them to each SEC stadium so that can have enough information to make the best choice in college education when it comes to that point. I knew I would piss a bunch of you off, but the reality is, the University has an incentive to fill the seats in the Vaught first, then allow the rest of the folks that can’t make the trip to come. It’s just frustrating when you play an undefeated SEC team at home and the stadium isn’t NEAR capacity. Our only hope is to count on the big traveling schools to get us full. That’s not the case at the top tiered programs in the league.
September 30, 2008 at 8:51 pm |
M4, I don’t think anyone was p’d off. I just wanted to justify my dissatisfaction with not getting to watch the Rebs on TV. I’m glad there are Ole Miss fans out there that make an effort to support the Rebels by attending every game they can. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pick the game up online and listen to it. Hoping the Rebs keep up the great work and pull another one out. We have a great team. We just need to remain consistent. Have fun at the game. GO REBS!
September 30, 2008 at 9:01 pm |
Not everybody lives in mississippi therfore not everybody can come to the game.
September 30, 2008 at 9:12 pm |
Dude, I’m in Atlanta, and I’ll be in Tuscaloosa and am actually flying to Little Rock to go to The Houston Nutt Bowl. Anybody that reads PA is obviosuly a huuuuge fan (YOU ROCK PA!). But it’s not guys like us that we need to be thinking about. I’ll be hunkered down near my car like a loser on a beautiful Saturday while all my friends here in the SEC mecca are enjoying Bama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Auburn on glorious HDTV. No matter how you want to justify it, it continues our small-time Vanderbilt of the West image. It’s the casual fan who felt pride seeing us all over ESPN and the cover of SI that you could possibly suck in to fandom by making the game available to him this weekend. Next week, he won’t care (unless we beat Bama). It’s really ridiculous when you think about it, it’s like Hartwell and his ilk never studied marketing. Wouldn’t more fans equal more money? Better attendence? Pay-per-view money would go in part to the school, right?
September 30, 2008 at 9:15 pm |
curious what m4rebs does for a living. i go to two home games a year and come from nashville. my wife and i and my little girl. we go with another couple with two kids. we stay in batesville. we do not have an extravagant set up in the grove. we brinng a box of chicken and some sandwich stuff and snacks and drinks. we spend over $600.00 on each game. that is a lot of cheddar if you are not pulling in the big $$$. if you make a lot of money then it is great you get to go to all the games, but be realistic when calling out people for not coming to all the home games. i would love to come to all home games but guess what? i got a kid in day care, i have a mortgage, i have groceries to buy so i can’t afford it. your comment comes accross as pompous.
September 30, 2008 at 9:32 pm |
I have friends that live in Nashville that make the trips. They usually stay with friends or family 1.5 hours away or something like that. I understand it is an investment, but it is all about priorities. I tithe, I put money in savings, I put money in a 401K, I have a child in daycare, and all of the same expenses every body in this great country has to endure. And if I make more money than you Wire, the democrats have taxed me more than you to equalize my take home and yours, or pretty close. That wasn’t the point of my callout. I simply made the point that the University is right on this one, if everyone called out all of the friends that you went to Ole Miss with that still live in (you guys call it) 3 hour drive from Oxford to buy season tickets (not necessarily use them, but BUY them), you’d get PPV EVERY SINGLE WEEK if one of the networks didn’t pick them up. I know EVERYONE can’t afford to go to Oxford, EVERY single game, but if you truly LOVE Ole Miss Sports, I think you’d have the BEST interest of the University & the Athletic department at heart, and that to me means more revenue to the University. Even if PPV was available, there are fees out the wazoo that are paid to whoever is televising it, plus you are paying about the same price as 1 ticket, when you could have 2,000 people over to your house to watch the game. That, in turn, if I do the math, adds up to less revenue for the university when there are 10,000 seats not being sold at $50 per seat, right? I didn’t mean to come across pompous, and I apologize if I did, I just so happen to agree with the University in this particular scenario. The bottomline is this, if we don’t lose to Vanderbilt, this football game gets picked up easily by at LEAST Raycom, probably ESPN if we knock the Dores out of the undefeated list. Maybe I’m just a butthole.
September 30, 2008 at 10:21 pm |
I’m a State fan and make at least 3 OM games each year. Just saying. It doesn’t hurt that I only live about a mile and a half from the Vaught. I also have season tickets in Starkville.
October 1, 2008 at 8:01 am |
“Early indications are that Saturday’s South Carolina game will not be a sellout.”
This is a crying a$$ shame. Our team deserves better than this “fanbase”.
October 1, 2008 at 10:22 am |
I can afford season tickets now, but I can remember a time not too long ago when I couldn’t afford to go to one single game even if somebody gave me a ticket. That was back when gas was around a dollar a gallon too. And I think most people in MS are a lot closer to that than they are to being season ticket holders. But that’s not why there aren’t sellouts.
If they would sell tickets to the Grove they would sell as many tickets as LSU or Alabama easily. Go out into the Grove during a game some time. There’s almost as many people in the Grove as there are in the stadium while the game is being played and they look like the type that could easily afford season tickets (a lot may actually have tickets but prefer sitting under the tent watching another game and “partaking”). But if they were all required to go to the game we’d have to build a bigger stadium.
October 1, 2008 at 12:13 pm |
M4rebs,
I would love to see your house! Hosting 2000 friends over for the game, wow that is some impressive house, not to mention a huge network of friends. My wife and I could only pull in about 300 family and friends for our wedding.
I understand the university’s logic, but does it really make sense. I disagree with the effectiveness. How many people would actually stay at home to watch the sub standard quality PPV instead of going to the game if they had that option? I would guess 50 at tops. But I would guess there would possibly be 1000’s that would watch teh game because they could not make it to Oxford for whatever the reason.
I am not upset about your comments, just very dissappointed I will not be able to watch the game. Believe me, there is no place I’d rather be Saturday than at the groove then the game. But I simiply can not, just like many others.
October 1, 2008 at 12:31 pm |
Wish I could be at the game on Saturday. Nothing like sitting in the Vaught yelling for the Rebels. For those who can’t, like me, the game is going to be shown on ESPN GamePlan on Dish Network and Direct TV. If you don’t have access to that or fall into the blackout zone, you can watch it live online at http://www.espn360.com. It is free for some internet providers such as Verizon or AT&T. Not sure what it cost if you don’t have one of those providers.
To all of you that are going to make it, give a big HOTTY TODDY for me. Go Rebels!
October 1, 2008 at 1:26 pm |
I guess I’m blessed. We live about an hour from Oxford. I haven’t had to purchase a ticket to an Ole Miss game of any sort since about halfway through my tenure at Ole Miss. That’s when I met my wife. My wife’s family is from Oxford and have had season tickets for forever. Since the MIL doesn’t care much about going to the games (whether football, baseball, basketball, or whatever) then I get the extra ticket. Add that with the fact that we get free lodging and meals for the weekend and you would think we would be crazy not to be in town for every game. Truth is, though, life gets in the way some times. Like this weekend, my son has a flag football game (which I coach) on Sat. morning. With a 1:00 p.m. kickoff, we wouldn’t have time to get to the game hardly. So we are having to make a choice…our lives or Ole Miss…which is more important. Thats not fair either way. Now, we will probably skip the pee-wee ball to watch the rebels, but the call would have been a lot harder to make if I knew I could sit at home and watch it on TV.
I guess what I’m saying is that I understand where the university is coming from. The revenue it makes from football weekends (and I’m talking about more than just the $50 ticket cost) is what drives the schools athletic budget. If you give the fans (and I mean the ones in close proximity) the option of PPV ($35-$50) or live (at least the $50 ticket price and half of your weekend) then they will choose the PPV more opften than not. I mean I love Oxford and Ole Miss as much as any of you but I already feel like I am there enough to start having to pay city taxes.
What if they did a blackout area of 2.5 hours and let everyone outside do the pay-per-view. How many of those – aside from m4rebs – are gonna come to every game anyway. There has to be some sort of compromise.
October 1, 2008 at 2:53 pm |
It’s good to see that Ole Miss fans complain about fan support just like we state fans do. I’m of the mindset that if you can go, that’s great. If not, that’s fine, too. Support the team and school however you can, but there’s no point in eating vienna sausages and ramen noodles for a week, just so you can go to a football game.
October 1, 2008 at 4:29 pm |
After upsetting the #4 team in the nation and complaining. I have always heard that complainers are really a happy bunch.
October 1, 2008 at 5:00 pm |
One other thing about the Rebels coming off this outstanding win, actually in the way which they pulled it off. Hollywood style. Late in 4th qtr score tied and a 84 yard pass/run play to put the Rebs up by a TD. Not only that great achievement, after the Gators came back to score a TD in which to tie the games, once more, an Ole Miss defensive player block the point after to win the game. Rebel fans should be a happy complain group.
October 1, 2008 at 5:31 pm |
From my point of view… Last night I arrived home after a 10 1/2 hour drive, 550 miles of I20 and US78, from Memphis. I am a lifelong and I mean from the age of 7 a Rebel. I attended every game until I was drafted. I ordered season tickets before leaving Vietnam. I sat on the 45. Then came along give me more money for your right to buy tickets. Finally, I quit buying tickets that were in the last section of the goal line. My alum and athletic status didn’t count any more. Why, because I did not make it to the ‘pie in the sky’ job. $50 is the going ticket rate… let’s see, $100 for tickets, $100+ for gas $150 for a motel, food another $100 or so. My bimonthly take home is $700+ ( I work for the state of GA with a degree required). Should I not pay the house note or what? Point is SEC sports has eliminated LOTS of fans who just can not afford what we all used to enjoy so much. Many of my GA alums friends have had to quit (read no choice) going to their home games for the same reason. The price to buy a ticket is not in the market. The networks broadcast ‘yankee’ ie other conference games that do not interest me. Reconsider your reasoning for PPVwith a blackout. My father watched the Memphis game in the MED while I had Ohio state on at his house. I would love to see the stands full but llife is what it is. My phone rang 10 minutes after the FL game from Mexico. Yes there are fans out of range. Hotty Toddy.
October 1, 2008 at 5:33 pm |
PS. There is no free parking in Athens, GA for games. More $$$