Seminole Boosters President Stephen Ponder led an hour-long Town Hall Meeting with FSU Athletics Director Michael Ponder in which they touched all the bases on Florida State Athletics. In this article we highlight how funds are raised, including through the renovation of Doak Campbell Stadium, and allow Ponder to address persistent misinformation about the new westside seating.

The Town Hall started "this-is-a-football" basic: What does Seminole Boosters do for FSU Athletics?

“Contributions account for 35 percent of our athletics budget and comes directly from Seminole Boosters,” Alford said. “It is so important that contributions keep coming to annual giving, debt service, coaches club, everything we are able to do (in Athletics) comes from Seminole Boosters.”

Alford said contributions from Seminole Boosters is right up there with the largest revenue source, the media contract, with ticket revenue among the three top revenue generators.

There are other important revenue streams, what Alford calls non-traditional revenue, like concessions and merchandise, but each of those pales by comparison to media rights, Booster contributions and ticket revenues.

As an ACC member, neither Alford nor the Seminole fan base can control its ACC media rights agreement, which the ACC holds the rights to negotiate. But Florida State and its fan base does have control over its destiny in terms of Booster contributions, ticket sales and with what Alford calls non-traditional revenue streams like concessions and merchandise.

And that’s why Ponder and Alford believe the Doak Campbell Stadium renovation project is so important to generating revenue Florida State needs to compete at an elite level.

Despite working around home games, the Doak Campbell Stadium project is on schedule in terms of construction and sales.

“This is a very personal project. Our staff has talked to a lot of folks,” Ponder said in his opening remarks about an ambitious project to replace the 74-year-old west side of the stadium with modern fan amenities and experiences and upgrade the east side. The enhanced amenities on the west side require existing season ticket holders on the west side to make a higher-level commitment.

While the midlevel skyboxes, founders' loge boxes and club seats nearly sold out, the sales team has faced price resistance from a number of existing season ticket holders. “There are also people who disagree with the project that we have spoken to, so we understand,” Ponder said. “It is a longtime, family-centered, people enjoying the game together, so it is a personal project.”

Much of the resistance comes from misinformation about the pricing of chair-back and bench seating not yet released.

Typically, when FSU has marketed season tickets or announced an increase in the ticket priority policy, it has simply sent a brochure to existing ticket holders with a seat map and the new contribution requirements for the upcoming season. But this isn’t your typical renewal effort as the renovation of the west side increases the size of each each seating product, which reduce the number of seats and forces a total stadium reseating. The project introduces three very different seating experiences — mid-level skyboxes, founder’s loge boxes and sideline club seats — all of which are more spacious, and all of which have sold out. New experiences are also being offered in the Dunlap Champions Club and are selling fast, too. The sales team has recently opened sales for the chair-back seats along the west sideline, which are located just above the club seats between the 10-yard lines.

Because the options are so diverse, FSU didn't think they could do it with a brochure and wanted to meet individually with each season ticket holder and Booster member to explain the details, the combined ticket/booster pricing structure, and why this project was necessary.

“We are going very personal, booster by booster, to talk to each and every season ticket holder about seating options,” Ponder said. “We are not through that process yet. Some we have not met with yet but we will. It is intentional on our part to go at this pace rather than just send out a blanket, seating map.”

And because the process to reach 10,000-plus ticket holders will take more than 18 months, misinformation has spread at the speed of social media.

“I tell you not to believe everything you read on social media,” Ponder implored, “but we can answer those questions in your individual meetings.”

The misinformation has been about the price of the seats as well as the new pricing model, which combines the ticket and Booster contribution into one seat price. For example, the very best club seats Zone 1 (between the 30s) were offered to the highest priority season ticket holders at an annual price of $4,250 each, with a one time $15,000 per seat capital campaign requirement per seat (paid over two years) for the right to buy them.

When FSU opened sales for the Zone 2 tier of club seats (from the 10 to the 30), they did so at $3,250 each, with a one-time $10,000 capital campaign commitment per seat. And when Zone 2 club seats sold out, they offered Zone 3 (10-yard line to the goal line) at $2,500 per seat and dropped the capital campaign requirement to $5,000.

While the capital campaign ask dropped from $15,000 per seat to $5,000, and the seat price dropped from $4,200 to $2,500, social media hasn't adjusted the prices they are reporting. In spite of that misinformation, FSU has sold out its inventory of west sideline club seats.

What's worse is people are now being led to believe those club seat prices will be the price for the 8,000 west sideline chairback seats, which FSU has sold 1,230 to just Silver Chiefs and above westside ticket holders. The sales team will begin calling 2,200 existing Tomahawks and Warriors in priority order who have had seats on the west sideline next week and expect to complete that group by the first of the year when they will call the next priority group.

The 8,000 westside chair-back seats are divided into three zones based on yard line, similar to the club seats, but at a still lower price and capital campaign requirement. Unlike the club seats, FSU will share the price for all three zones with you during your presentation so you can choose the Zone and price point that best meets your budget.

The second major misunderstanding is the price you are quoted is for both the ticket price and the booster contribution. In years past, a season ticket holder had to write two checks, one for his season tickets and one to Seminole Boosters for the contribution requirement for those seats. The new pricing model is for both, so the ticket price quoted includes both the cost of the seat and a per seat contribution to Seminole Boosters.

Let me share a real life example. In 2024 a Champions Club seat holder was required to pay $3,000 for two club seats ($1,500 each) but also was required to pay $1,300 to qualify for Tomahawk member parking benefits, for a total of $4,300. In 2025, the same person will pay $4,000 for those club seats ($2,000 each), with $1,000 credited to tickets ($500 per ticket) and $3,000 credited to their Booster membership benefits. So the person with two seats could pay less than they have been paying.

In all sections of the westside club seat section, $750 of whatever price quoted was for the seat price, with the difference being applied to the members booster contribution. In the chair-back seat section that seat price will be $500 with anything above that going to the Boosters.

While Ponder wouldn’t share the chair-back seat prices during the Town Hall, saving that for the one-on-one presentations, we do know the chair-back seats are significantly less than the club seats below them, even if X/Twitter tells you otherwise.

“We are continuing to host those meetings and will communicate seating options through the 2025 spring cycle of renewals because you have to know what you are purchasing,” Ponder said of the impending deadline.

Once every existing season ticket holer on the west sideline has made their choice, only then will those west side chair-back seats be offered to Seminole Booster donors with seats on the east sideline or with no seats at all. FSU chose to do this to ensure that every existing ticket holder on the west side, even the lowest level donor, was afforded the chance to renew seats on the west sideline.

Once the chair-back seats are sold, the Boosters will open the final product, which is west sideline bleacher seats located along the end zone. There will be no capital contribution asked of these seats.

As for where the pricing model came from, Ponder said, “We did surveys, pre and post. We did ask people if they would be willing to pay more. Would you like some upgrades? The obvious answer was, yes, everyone wants upgrades. But in order to get those, obviously some things cost more.”

There's one more priority for the project, which is not the least of the priorities for the Doak Renovation project.

“The (other priority) is for us to compete nationally and we want to compete on the field and off the field,” Ponder said.

Because annual fund contributions are one of the two primary drivers of revenue for the athletics department, and because it is one of the few revenue sources that are controllable by FSU and its fan base, Florida State conducted a study of peer schools in 2023 to find out where it stood in terms of the average contribution per yard line in Doak vs. peer stadiums. The findings might surprise you.

“I love to compare us to our peers,” said Alford. “When you look at the model the SEC has, we are $13 million behind the average SEC school — a Mississippi State or someone along those lines — in what they are bringing revenue-wise out of their stadium.”

Thirteen million behind a Mississippi State-type SEC school. Let that soak in.

“And the average Big Ten schools, we are $9 million behind in those revenues,” Alford said.

Stadium renovations will help to close that revenue gap per-yard line on the west sideline.

“Those institutions have gone in and updated their stadiums over the last 15 to 20 years and have been able to capitalize on the different fan experiences," Alford said. "(They) are continually growing that ticket base, and that’s something Doak Campbell will allow us to do."

Florida State has long trailed its peers in terms of average contribution by yard line, including in the ACC partly because of price resistance in a community largely populated by state workers, largely by the scarcity of population within a 2.5-hour drive and, to Alford’s point, because of the amenities being offered.

“For us to compete amongst our peers — and we’re not asking to go up there where Notre Dame, USC and Nebraska are (on the ranking) — but we are asking to get more competitive with our peers,” Alford said. “And to get more competitive with our peers we need to provide more amenities like other institutions have already done, and then … those experiences. We lead the country in distance travelled (to home games). More than 60 percent of our fan base travels over three hours to get to Tallahassee and Leon County for a weekend game, so it’s important we have those fan experiences and amenities here for them because they are coming from pro venues. We don’t want to provide the pro model, but (we do) look at some of the amenities in those stadiums and arenas that we can provide here.”

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