Texas A&M students will now have one option when it comes to purchasing sports passes. The 12th Man sports pass, which will grant admission to more than 170 athletic events and take effect in Fall 2014, will be the only student sports pass choice at $290.
Jennifer Martin, director of marketing for A&M athletics, said the University wants to market tickets more effectively to its students and the rebranding and remodeling of the sports pass process was a sensible place to start.
Jason Cook, senior associate athletics director, said the change in sports pass options was made to avoid confusion and to reduce student costs.
“As we were looking at student sports pass offerings for next year, we wanted to see if there was a way we could reduce costs for students and also eliminate the confusion that exists between a football-only sports pass and an all-sports pass and finally see if there was a way we could incentivize attendance at our non-football athletics events,” Cook said.
Student body president Reid Joseph met with Cook to discuss plans to provide a sports pass option that admitted students to all athletics at a reasonable price.
“I believe that this is really going to be beneficial for the University and obviously our students to provide a very reasonable all-sports pass,” Joseph said. “With the rising cost of everything around campus, especially for students like myself who are personally financing our education, every dollar counts. This is going to provide an opportunity to be involved as the 12th Man not just in football, but in all sports at a much more reasonable rate than the past all-sports passes.”
The change in policy comes under the umbrella of the ongoing Kyle Field Redevelopment plan.
“It’s part of the Kyle Field Redevelopment process,” Cook said. “Students are contributing to the project with student fees and an increase in ticket prices. What we found when we started putting those prices together – we were concerned that we would be pricing a lot of students out of not only buying an all-sports pass, but even a football-only pass.”
Martin said the University hopes the 12th Man sports pass will encourage more students to attend non-football sporting events.
In 2013, a football-only sports pass cost $225 and the all-sports option cost $350. Cook said the athletics department is subsidizing $2 million to put the 12th Man sports pass price at $290.
Joseph said he hopes the pricing of the 12th Man sports pass allows for increased student involvement with friends and organizations at athletic events.
“We are the 12th Man and we support all Aggie athletics,” Joseph said. “It helps with attendance and helps to get students more involved. Athletics is a great way to get involved – whether you’re going just with some friends or with an organization on campus. Now I believe this is going to enable more organizations to organize events centered around sporting events because all their members that have a sports pass can go to the basketball game or the baseball game.”
Registration for the 12th Man sports pass opens Thursday at mysportspass.tamu.edu and ends on April 29. Students who register in this time frame will be eligible for various prizes and incentives, Martin said.
Cook said there are 31,118 tickets – the same number as last year – reserved for students. However, with an expected freshman class of around 9,000, tickets cannot be guaranteed for returning students if they do not register for the 12th Man sports pass this spring.