Bordow: ASU football ticket price hike is stupid

Dying the day after you win the lottery is bad timing.

Raising ticket prices after your football team finishes 5-7 and the economy is in the tank and you dump BYU off your home schedule in favor of Louisiana-Monroe is finding-out-your-fiancee-is-a-man-right-after-you-marry-her timing.

Just what was Arizona State thinking Tuesday when it announced it was raising ticket prices on 83 percent of the seats in Sun Devil Stadium?

OK, we know we stunk last year, and a lot of our fans are out of work or really being squeezed by the economy, but we can sell this. Just remind everyone that Rich Olson is still the offensive coordinator.

Congratulations, ASU. You just moved into a tie for first for the stupidest move ever made by a local sports team. I thought the Cardinals had retired the crown when they had the highest ticket price in the NFL their first year in the Valley - thanks for the red carpet; now we're going to roll it up and hit you over the head with it - but you've hit a new high. Or low.

ASU, as you might expect, has a simple explanation for the price increase: It's being hit hard by the downturn in the economy and had to do something to meet its annual athletic department budget of $41 million.

"We desperately tried to hold the fort, but we couldn't do it with our budget," said Stephen Ponder, the senior associate athletic director for development. ... "For us to balance the budget, we had to do what we did.

"We're not pro sports. We're trying to educate kids on scholarship, and so people are helping someone (the college athlete) get an education."

Don't you see? If you object to the price increase, you're anti-academics.

Look, I understand ASU is struggling financially, and that the price increase is the first since 2001. But this was absolutely the wrong time to do it.

Fans already are angry about the state of the football program. ASU failed to go to a bowl game for the first time since 2003, and there's a good chance the Sun Devils will suffer back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 1946-47.

Raising prices just fans that anger. If the message boards are any indication, more than a few season-ticket holders will boycott Sun Devil Stadium in the fall. And ASU's revenue from ticket sales will drop.

More importantly, was there no one in the athletic department who thought it might be, you know, a bad idea to stick it to fans when so many of them are just struggling to make ends meet? Archie Bunker wasn't as insensitive.

What's truly odious is that ASU is asking for more money from its fans while giving them a less attractive home schedule to watch. BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe confirmed Wednesday what many of us have suspected for a while: It was ASU that asked out of their scheduled Sept. 12 game at Sun Devil Stadium.

"ASU wanted to get out of our game for the next couple of years," Holmoe said in a radio interview. "They wanted out."

ASU officials dispute Holmoe's claim, saying they were asked by ESPN to back out so the cable network could help arrange a BYU-Oklahoma game, which will be played at the new Dallas Cowboys' stadium on Sept. 5. In return, say the officials, the network will owe ASU down the line.

But think about it. Why would ASU - which is hurting financially - volunteer to drop a game that likely would be a sellout for a game against Louisiana-Monroe that probably won't draw 45,000? And if it wasn't ASU's idea, why wasn't it compensated for the loss of revenue?

No, it seems rather obvious. ASU will have a new quarterback next fall. It has to travel to Athens, Ga., to play Georgia on Sept. 26. Why run the risk of going 1-2 in non-conference play when Louisiana-Monroe is a guaranteed win?

Never mind that a BYU-ASU game would be of great interest or that fans might be eager to see Cougars quarterback Max Hall, a Mesa Mountain View product who was recruited to ASU before transferring.

That would be putting the fans first, and ASU can't have that.

If you're wondering why athletic director Lisa Love hasn't been given a chance to respond, well, a phone call was made, but a university spokesman said Love did not want to talk to me.

So this is what fans are left with: A price increase, two unattractive non-conference home games - the Sun Devils open the season against Idaho State - and a boatload of hypocrisy.

It was just three years ago, after all, that ASU complained when New Mexico State punted their game in a blatant effort to soften their home schedule.

Short-term memory loss can be convenient. But here's guessing Sun Devil fans won't soon forget this sucker punch.