Pricing Strategies in NCAA Football: Getting Them Through the Door

Brian Goff writes this post over at the Sports Economist to describe a ticket pricing strategy being employed by the Western Kentucky athletic department:

In contrast, ESPN's Pat Forde describes the complete opposite strategy employed by my institution (WKU) in its jump to I-A football.

Athletic director Wood Selig rolled back the cost of season tickets to a dirt-cheap $25 for all five home games and made them all general admission -- first come, first served. The plan is to get them in the door, then hope they'll re-up when the prices inevitably increase.

Of course, the NCAA 15,000 minimum attendance requirement imposes a strong incentive to adopt such a strategy. Even without this constraint, WKU's approach makes sense when the demand is low, when price discrimination won't do much for revenues. Low ticket prices get people in the door, so that the "experience" will increase the interest in football over the long haul. (The idea got off to a good start last Saturday with a crowd of 17,000 even for a cupcake opponent; last year's average attendance was about 9,000).

Could a strategy like this work:  give cheap tickets to the first, say 5,000 tickets and then gradually increase ticket sales each time a threshold is past?  The viewing experience is enhanced as more people attend, via network effects, and people would have a higher willingness to pay.