It’s no secret that Rockwood is in a budget crunch. According to the District’s website, teachers will lose jobs, zero-hour classes will be cut, and the Board of Education has announced that in order to help with the budget situation, ticket prices for Rockwood basketball and football games will raise from $3 to $5.
The price increase will take effect at the beginning of the 2011-2012 winter sports season.
Activities Director Mark Linneman said ticket prices are a district-wide issue.
“This is a Board decision, it’s district-wide,” Linneman said. “This is not just a Marquette decision.”
Linneman said fans can still purchase student or family passes through MHS, which give admittance to sporting events for one price. These passes have always been available, but Linneman said he expects to sell more passes once ticket prices increase.
While ticket prices aren’t a school decision, the price of these sporting passes is determined by school administrators, Linneman said. Other Rockwood schools offer passes, but they don’t all work the same way.
“Ideally, we’d like to sit down and decide on a uniform price for our passes to make things easier,” Linneman said. “Hopefully by the summer, we’ll have that in place and be able to advertise it.”
2010-2011 family passes cost $50 and individual student passes cost $15. Linneman said the schools may decide to raise these costs as well.
Caleb Bobo, sophomore member of MHS’s spirit group, Stang Gang, said he’s upset about the increase. This year, Stang Gang passes cost $15 for one season and $25 for two seasons, but the 2011-2012 prices are yet to be determined.
“[$5] is a lot of money to be spending on one sporting event that lasts about an hour, and District games are already like $7,” Bobo said.
Linneman said postseason ticket prices are determined by MSHSAA, not Rockwood, and schools don’t get much of that revenue.
“Individual schools get a little money from the postseason, but most of it goes to MSHSAA,” Linneman said.
Linneman said he encourages students to obtain MAP Scholars cards for free admittance to home games, and to purchase student passes.
Bobo said the MAP Scholars cards and student passes are more valuable than before.
“I guess [the price increase] will just make the cards more valuable and encourage people to buy passes,” Bobo said.
Sean Abernathy, junior, said he isn’t worried about the price increase, specifically because of the MAP Scholars card.
“It doesn’t really affect me a whole lot since I get into home events free,” Abernathy said. “The only difference for me would be away games and I usually only go to a couple of those.”
Sam Norton, junior, said he isn’t happy with the decision because he goes to a lot of away games.
“They already raised parking prices $80, and now an extra $2 a game will really start to add up,” Norton said.