COLLEGE FOOTBALL Ticket sales begin early for Pittsburgh Panthers

The boost in attendance provides some $9 million to athletics.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The regular-season opener is less than two weeks away, but the University of Pittsburgh already has sold out non-club season-ticket packages for the six-game home schedule at Heinz Field, and a waiting list has been established for next season as well.
Single-game tickets are on sale now, depending upon availability, with individual standing-room-only tickets only for the Virginia Tech game Nov. 8.
And 1,500 standing-room-only tickets also will be go on sale Sept. 15 for the Notre Dame game Oct. 11. Heinz Field's capacity is 65,000.
Just 1,500 season tickets from 6,600 club-level seats are still available, but a $500 donation to Team Pittsburgh -- Pitt's fund-raising body -- must be made to get into that section.
Season-ticket sales are at 42,544, which does not include 10,000 tickets for students at $25 each.
Financial backing
The boost in attendance provides some $9 million to the athletics department.
"It begins with the leadership from the University ... Chancellor [Mark] Nordenberg and the Trustees' emotional move from Pitt Stadium to the North Side and a new stadium," Pitt athletic director Jeff Long said.
"Secondly, you have to look at the quality of the product that coach [Walt] Harris has built during his time here, and the creative marketing plan, dropping the ticket prices, to entice fans to come to Heinz Field."
Jim Earle, Pitt's associate athletic director for new business and fan development, was among the leaders on the marketing team.
"We've done a lot to accelerate our sales process," Earle said. "Six years ago we were handling renewals in August, but we started in February this year. ... The big momentum boost was our basketball team's success.
"We sold more tickets than ever during that time. Then, we needed to sustain that momentum, and we did that by emphasizing the preseason rankings throughout the summer in anticipation for the upcoming season."
Warning to fans
An announcement Wednesday by team officials that tickets were nearly gone led to a rush at the ticket booth in recent days.
Earle said that 500 season-ticket packages were sold Thursday, after the announcement went public, and 130 were sold via the Internet overnight.
The Panthers averaged 44,424 fans for each of their seven home games with a season-high 66,731 tickets for the West Virginia game. The highest previous average was more than 52,000 in 1982 when the program was coming off of three straight 11-1 seasons.
Pitt had some 2,000 fewer season ticket sales in 1996, Coach Johnny Majors' final year, meaning sales have jumped nearly 400 percent under Harris' tenure.
Ticket sales have increased 124 percent, from last season, when 18,959 season tickets were sold.