Donation required

for tickets
By Steve Behr
sports@wataugademocrat.com

If you’re a Appalachian State football season-ticket holder at Kidd Brewer Stadium with really good seats, you’ll have to pay extra to keep them. Even if your seats aren’t so good, they’ll come with an extra price.

The Appalachian State athletic department sent a letter to season ticket holders last week saying that if they want to keep their premium seats, most that are located between the 40-yard lines, an extra donation of $500 to the Yosef Club will be necessary to keep them. Other tickets, mostly between the 10-to-40- yard lines, will cost season-ticket holders an extra $250 donation to the Yosef Club.

Current members of the Yosef Club do not need to pay the additional costs.

The latest charges are necessary to help pay for the rising costs of scholarships, according to the letter sent to the ticket holders last week. The letter also said the money would go toward the renovation of Kidd Brewer Stadium, which includes better concessions and adding restrooms.

A map of the stadium and the letter sent to season-ticket holders, are posted on the school’s Web site goasu.com under the tickets heading. The map shows parts of the stadium that are open to the general public that do not need a donation to the Yosef Club to be purchased.

“We’re very consistent with what a lot of schools in America are doing,” Appalachian State athletics director Charlie Cobb said. “We have a need to generate revenue for scholarships and we have to pay for improvements in the stadium.”

Appalachian State, which has won three straight Football Championship Subdivision national championships, finished first in the subdivision in attendance last year. A school record of 28,020 crammed into Kidd Brewer to watch the Mountaineers beat Lenoir-Rhyne 48-7.

The stadium has been undergoing renovations for the past two years. The press box was torn down on the west side and temporary facilities were brought in on the east side.

Expansion of the east side seating capacity is in the renovation plans. Part of those new seats will be part of the new donation plans.

Cobb said he’s received phone calls that are both for and against the new fee.

“Some will understand and some won’t,” Cobb said. “Hopefully the vast majority will understand. We have roughly 460 student-athletes that we are trying to support. We’re also trying to make the gameday experience better by adding more restrooms, concessions and parking. We’re trying to create a nice gameday experience and there are costs that are associated with that.”