How to Lose a Football Fan

I was there in 1975 when Stanford banished the Indian as its mascot and the fans adopted the band’s Tree as its new symbol. I was in Berkeley for The Play in 1984 when the Cal Bears ran through a prematurely celebrating Stanford band, to win the Big Game. I sat through rainy chilly nights in November and obscenely hot September afternoons. I celebrated NewYear’s Eve of the Millinium by watching game films with the team in Long Beach as a prelude to the Rose Bowl. But now, as the new Stanford Stadium nears completion, it looks as if I won’t be there next fall.

This is not an important story,but it is a sad one about a thirty year relationship gone bad. We loved our football seats. We were on the top row,on the aisle, under the flagpole, on the fifty yard line. When Stanford announced that they were tearing down the stadium to build a new one, our first reaction was “Why?” We were told that Stanford needed to boost season ticket sales, but we could have told them that winning football games was more important to attendance than new seats. Then we were told that to sit between the forty five yard lines we would have to cough up an extra $1000 per seat. I was invited to a focus group discussion—one of a dozen or so—of season ticket holders. We told them that college athletics is not a big ticket event, rather it is a family and community outing. We cherish the people we sat with, the tailgates, the visiting under the oaks, even the dusty, unpaved parking lot where we jockeyed for lawn chair and cooler space on game days. We were assured that the parking would not be affected, but that the ticket price would go up. We told Stanford not to expect us to join the Buck Club (truly its name) to sit on the fifty yard line.

The Athletic Department listened to our feedback about our long time seatmates, and offered us an option, to sign up for seats with others, in “neighborhoods.” Aha, we thought. Something good may come out of all this change. We can plan for the rest of our lives by getting a block together that we can share and trade, and grow old together. Our young adult children began to plan on inheriting these tickets. Just think, said I, only 20 more years and we will celebrate 50 years of Stanford football, together. Our tailgate of about thirty people was composed of classmates from the 70’s, both undergrad and grad school. In March we signed up as a neighborhood and paid $560 a couple to Stanford--a 38 per cent increase in ticket prices over the prior year. Our designated neighborhood leader met several times with our own personal liaison from the Athletic Department, who assured us that with our longevity as season ticket holders, our history of donations to the university, and the number of alumni in our group, we should have very good seats indeed. We began to hope for the 40 plus yard line. And then we waited.

Shortly after the deadline for returning season ticket holders, Stanford issued a press release in which they revised the parking plan around the Stadium. Only the Buck Club folks—the $1000 or 2000 a seat folks—would be allowed to park in the lot immediately adjacent to the Stadium, known as Lot 2. In the lot where we had been tailgating since 1975. The regular season ticket holders would be banished across a four lane road, with no rest rooms and more importantly, no history. Yes, we felt betrayed, second class citizens, but we also felt that we couldn’t complain because we didn’t have our seat assignments yet. Enough people did complain that several weeks later the Athletic Department returned half of Lot 2 to us normal season ticket holders.

Finally we got our seat assignments , 5 months after the focus groups began. We weren’t in the 30 to 45 yard section. We weren’t all together. And others were listed in our neighborhood who had listed other preferences. One couple was seated in the end zone. (They have PhDs from Stanford, a son with degrees from Stanford, and are founders of a publicly traded company. ) I began to feel very bad about this. I called the Ticket Office. I asked to speak to our personal liaison, the architect of our fate, the person who had sentenced 30 loyal fans to the twenty-something yard line for the rest of our lives. I was told that I could only speak to the young lady responsible for this undesirable section. She told me our seats could be worse, and that lots of people would like to have them.

Today I am going on an invitation-only tour of the new Stadium, supposedly an effort to convince me our seats aren’t so bad. It won’t work. You can’t talk to me about sight lines or feet from the field. I participated in a long and onerous process, followed all of the rules and was treated poorly. The relationship is hanging by a thread.


And so I envision an end to this fan’s participation in the game day experience. Watching it on my big screen tv, having my old friends over for barbecue, and clicking the remote when Stanford plays poorly—it sounds better and better.


‘