State of the Monarchs: Old Dominion athletic director Wood Selig laments loss of ‘great rivalry’ with VCU. In football, ticket sales are ‘brisk.’
This is the second and final part of staff writer David Hall’s conversation with Old Dominion athletic director Wood Selig.
What are your thoughts on the VCU basketball rivalry – former rivalry, I should say?
“I think it’s a great rivalry. There are not many true rivalries in college athletics. Certainly, you’ve got Kentucky-Louisville in basketball. You’ve got Duke-Carolina in basketball. And I’m not saying ODU-VCU is of that stature, but it means just as much to our fans as it does to Duke, North Carolina, Louisville and Kentucky. And there are just not that many true rivalries like that in the country. And as administrators, I think it’s our obligation and our duty to do everything we can to protect and continue that sort of healthy rivalry. There’s so much that’s disappointing going on with college athletics these days, whether it’s collectives, whether it’s the transfer portal. You name it. We are losing public confidence. We are losing fan interest. We need to make sure we are doing everything we can to protect the long-term viability of intercollegiate athletics. So take it as you will from those comments what I think about VCU’s decision.”
It’s like there’s no longer a respect for continuity. And when I say that, I mean in terms of a rivalry like that, and also in terms of the transfer portal. The whole operation seems like it’s year-to-year, everywhere.
“Very transient, yeah, and very transactional. What was so good about college athletics was, as a kid, you knew you had your favorite player for three, four, maybe five years. And now, it might be one year, and where is the attachment? How do you grow that fanaticism with such annual turnover in rosters?”
What can you tell me about football ticket sales? I hear they’ve been pretty good.
“Yeah, ticket sales have been brisk. Last year, for example, our first year back, we sold 7,200 season tickets. This year, we are approaching 9,500 season tickets mid-June, with 10 weeks left to sell. So we are already 2,300 season tickets above last year. We have renewed 92% of last year’s season ticket holders, which is a very high percentage. Because people move. People no longer can financially afford it, or they can’t physically attend. So 92% is an outstanding percentage. And out of the 9,500 season tickets sold, we have 2,500 new season tickets among that number. So there’s renewed interest. It reminds me of the start of ODU football (when) we enjoyed 60 consecutive sellouts. We saw Taylor Heinicke slinging it all around S.B. Ballard Stadium, and it was a really tough ticket to get. We had waiting lists for people interested in buying season tickets. I think we are tracking along those lines again. I think it certainly helps when you have Virginia Tech at home and you’ve got JMU coming in for the first time in quite a while. You have the Sun Belt Conference lineup that is absolutely loaded. The East Division of the Sun Belt is probably the best collection of seven football programs among the Group of Five. So we’ve got some great football ahead of us, and the Hampton Roads community is certainly taking note. We’re going to plan an aggressive season ticket TV, radio, print and social media campaign that will start in about the next 30 days, and we fully hope to get to a 14,000-plus season ticket sales, where there are no single-game tickets. The only way to get a ticket for ODU football is to be a season ticket holder. That’s our trajectory and that is our goal.”
So how many season tickets are available in total now?
“A little over 14,000, like 14,500. You’ve got to hold a couple thousand for the visiting team. You’ve got to hold 4,500 for your students. So there’s another 6,500. So when you start doing the math, you quickly get down to below 15,000 season tickets available for public sale. And this year for the first time, we have removed the donation required so that fans can just come and buy the seats they want without having to make a gift to the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation. Certainly, we’re going to try and encourage everyone who’s coming to watch Old Dominion football to be an Old Dominion Athletic Foundation member. We’ll work hard to get their donation and their membership into ODAF. But it is no longer a requirement for the majority of the seats in S.B. Ballard Stadium. Plus, we’ve re-priced some of the season tickets at rates that are extremely affordable and family-friendly.”
What do you have to do between now and the first Sun Belt game? Is there a to-do list?
“First of all, we’re going to celebrate July 1. Call it what you want. We’re saying new dawn, new day. We are July 1 a full-blown Sun Belt Conference member institution. We’re excited to be returning to the Sun Belt Conference. Our fans vividly remember the outstanding basketball competition that took place in the ‘80s and early ‘90s when ODU was a member of the Sun Belt Conference, sending multiple teams to the NCAA basketball tournament. So I think our fans are excited to return July 1 to the Sun Belt. Over the summer, we have to rebrand all of our fields, our courts, our facilities. Remove Conference USA and proudly hang Sun Belt Conference everywhere that we can to link that up.”
I didn’t even think about that. Conference USA is all over the place.
Oh yeah, it’s a massive effort. It’s like when BB&T changed their name to Truist. You don’t realize how many places you put a conference logo around your campus and facilities and locker rooms and letterhead and email signatures. I mean, it is everywhere. So we’re going to have to really do a deep dive on putting the Sun Belt everywhere Conference USA has been, and maybe even find some more places, some new places. So that’s No. 1. And we’re making new travel arrangements to new cities and new communities. We’ve got to figure out hotels. Where do you stay? You’ve got to figure out what’s the best way to get there. So there’s a lot of conversations going on back and forth between other league members. They’re calling us: ‘Hey, where do we stay when we come to Norfolk to play you guys?’ So the next 12 months are going to be a huge learning curve for everyone involved. But it’s an exciting time. Conference USA served us extremely well. The CAA was imploding. VCU and George Mason were moving to the A-10. Richmond had already moved. Things were changing, and we were very, very lucky to have the option to move from the CAA to Conference USA and elevate our football program to the FBS level. The FBS is dictating college athletics. You’re either in the driver’s seat or you’re in the backseat. There’s almost no middle seat. So FBS is truly where it is with regard to leading and being in the forefront of college athletics. So C-USA allowed ODU a chance to hop into the front seat of college athletics. So we’ll forever be indebted to Conference USA. It served ODU well. It waas just time now for ODU to take the next step, and that next step is the Sun Belt Conference with a much better TV partnership, much more coverage on all ESPN platforms, better revenue, less travel, a better experience for our student-athletes, more appeal for our fans. So for so many reasons, July 1 is going to be a significant day and a day for celebration for ODU athletics and ODU in general.”
Is there an actual party on July 1, and should I bring anything?
“I think we’re going to ask all of our fans to celebrate responsibly in their own way on July 1. It’s a tough time of year to really get everyone all together for an official celebration. But I think when we start playing Sun Belt Conference member institutions for the first time this fall, say in volleyball or in football, that’s going to be the time to celebrate our membership in the Sun Belt Conference. And hopefully, we’ll celebrate it with capacity attendance and show the rest of the league what a home-court, home-field advantage truly is, ODU Monarchs style.”
