Auburn's ticket price raise an ominous sign for fans in next NIL era

Auburn University gave fans an announcement they were likely unhappy to see on Friday, when the school notified season ticket holders that they could expect a raise in prices for next season, according to the Associated Press (via ESPN).

Athletic director John Cohen told season ticket holders that they should prepare for a bump in the cost of their seats for next season, citing the recent judicial settlement that gives players a cut of schools' revenue.

"Growing revenue opportunities because of additional expenses has become essential for Auburn's sustained success," Cohen said, noting it was "imperative that ticket prices in several seating zones be adjusted due to a new era of NIL."

Auburn isn't the first school to tie their ticket prices directly into the revenue they need to make for the $20.5 million pool of cash they need to pull to pay players starting next year; Tennessee added a "talent fee" to all of their ticket sales, while Clemson has plans to add an athletic surcharge to tuition bills. Arkansas is hitting the concession stand with a three percent bump in prices, as well.

Even Alabama, the juggernaut of college football, the bluest of all blue bloods and Auburn's most hated rival, has been trying to whip fans into shape to boost their NIL fortunes.

All of this makes for ominous reading if you're a college football fan, as it shows that you can expect any additional cost paid to players to be passed on to you directly.

The finances of college sports have always been a shell game of sorts. Schools, especially Power Four schools, and ESPECIALLY SEC and Big Ten schools make money, lots of money, off of football. They get some cash from basketball as well, but the majority of their revenue comes from football.

But when you go to find that money, schools have gotten very good at spending it on other things that aren't players. Coaching contracts, for example. New, state of the art facilities for the football team, the basketball team. Yes, some of that money went to non-revenue sports to keep them up and running as well, but the vast majority was shoveled directly back into the furnace that was the college football facilities arms race.

The money came from a wide variety of sources, too. Sure, ticket sales were part, and merchandise was a massive chunk as well, but boosters also gave large chunks of change to that effort. But the biggest, fastest growing piece of the revenue pie was television.

In the 2022-2023 season, for example, the SEC doled out a whopping $741 million to its schools, which breaks down to approximately $51.2 million per member school, according to The Athletic. Meanwhile, the Big Ten's TV deal is even more lucrative; according to ESPN in 2022, their $7 billion contract with Fox, CBS and NBC is supposed to pay out between $80 and $100 million to each school per year.

Where is all that money now? Surely out of the $50 million Auburn got per year from their current deal (which is only expected to go up, courtesy of the growing college football playoff, and the SEC's new deal with Fox), you can find the $20.5 million you need to have to pay players across all your sports, while still having enough to keep the lights on for everyone.

It's remarkable how quickly these schools go from celebrating their massive TV contract and revenue wins to spinning around and crying poverty to the fan base, begging for more money in ticket sales, more donations to NIL funds, more cash to help make sure they stay competitive. How, after decades of raking in ungodly sums of cash, they immediately start raising prices for the average fan once you have to start paying players.

It's not like the Tigers have anything in particular to incentivize fans to pay those prices at this point; the Tigers were just 5-7 this year, and just 2-6 in conference play en route to a 14th place finish in the new-look SEC.

Cohen didn't go begging fans for money to help pay his $1.5 million per year salary that includes a $125,000 per year increase just for existing in the job; he didn't raise ticket prices to help pay Hugh Freeze's 7-year, contract that pays the head coach $6.5 million per season with a $250,000 bonus just for staying on the plains each year, even when the Tigers look as ghastly as they have in their first two seasons under his watchful eye.

But now that the players get a piece of the pie? Well, now everyone's got to bear the brunt of those costs. It's far too big a burden to lay on the university and its big fish boosters.

This isn't just about Auburn, not really. They just happen to be the ones in this moment who are moving the shells around, the ones throwing their hands up and saying "we just can't afford it!" while hoping you didn't see the piles of cash sitting in the safe behind them. It's a game we're going to see a lot of as we move into this new era of revenue sharing, where the players come close to getting what they deserve, which means there might be slightly less for athletic directors and head coaches to gobble up as well.

Because after all, the last thing Cohen, Freeze, Auburn, or any athletic department want to do is try to get by with a little less, when they could just get a little more out of you, instead.

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