OSU drops spring game ticket prices

By DOUG LESMERISES

The Plain Dealer

COLUMBUS

With a sunny day and temperatures in the 70s expected, Urban Meyer wants a packed house at Ohio Stadium for today’s spring football game. Chasing that, Ohio State admitted, and attempted to correct, a pricing mistake on Friday, dropping the price of tickets from $20 to $5.

The original $20 day-of-game price was an increase from $15 in 2012, the last time the spring game was at Ohio Stadium, $10 in 2010 and $5 in 2009.

“We overpriced it,” athletic director Gene Smith told cleveland.com at a football coaches clinic at Ohio State on Friday morning that included speeches from Meyer and Browns coach Mike Pettine. “We deserve to have a huge crowd, so we said, ‘Let’s change it.’”

Meyer said he’d like to shoot for a crowd of 90,000 or 100,000 at the game. Asked if he was involved in dropping the ticket price, Meyer raised his eyebrows and grinned. He said he’s totally focused on recruiting, and the best thing for recruiting is a big crowd and great atmosphere.

High ticket prices may have been standing in the way of that. Meyer said the price was first brought to his attention by his wife, Shelley.

“I’m really excited about it,” Meyer said of the change. “I just think it’s great. I think it’s great for Ohio State to do that.”

Last year, with Ohio Stadium undergoing renovations, the game was held at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, and it drew just over 37,000 fans. Prices were $12 for general admission and $18 for box seats.

In Meyer’s first spring at Ohio State in 2012, the Buckeyes drew 81,112 at Ohio Stadium, the best in the nation for a spring game that year. Prices were $7 in advance and $15 the day of the game.

Ohio State set what was the national record for a spring game on a beautiful day in 2009 with more than 95,000 fans. Tickets that year were $5 in advance and on the day of the game.

That is what Smith said the Buckeyes realize they need to encourage. Lesson learned, Smith mentioned that game and said “we’ve got to get back to that.”

So instead of $20 the day of the game, and $12 in advance, tickets for this game are now back to $5. Fans who purchased tickets for $12 in advance may return to the place where they purchased those tickets to have the difference refunded.

The phone number for the Ohio State ticket office is 614-292-2624, and the email is athletic.tix@osu.edu.

Ticket sales benefit the LiFE Sports program and the Boys and Girls Club, and Ohio State said fans who purchased advance tickets may also see the difference donated to those programs.

Smith said funding LiFE Sports, which benefits 700 children in the Columbus area, is why the tickets were priced so high at the start.

“That’s our largest outreach, so I’ve got to balance that,” Smith said. “We do have huge (gameday) expenditures, so we’ve got to pay for our stadium operations. But we’ll probably stay at this (reduced) level in the future as long as we can handle that.”

Ohio State said about 36,000 tickets were sold before the decision to reduce prices.