If you want to attend this year’s Virginia-Virginia Tech game, get your checkbook ready to make a donation to the Cavaliers. Unless you had a season-ticket package to Virginia football games last season, that is the only way you will be able to purchase single-game tickets to the rivalry game against the Hokies this fall.
“I have been a part of many rivalry games as a student-athlete, coach and administrator,” an email from Virginia Athletics Director Carla Williams said this week, according to Streaking the Lawn. “These games are very important and mean more to all of us. Home field advantage matters. Home field advantage especially matters to our coaches and student-athletes. We are working extremely hard to set a new standard and it will take all Cavalier fans to help us make this happen.”
This kind of ticket sales tactic is nothing new around college football or sports in general. And honestly, more teams should consider utilizing this type of strategy for certain game son their schedule. Because Virginia Tech has typically been on a higher ground than Virginia in recent years, Hokies fans have found it a bit easier to get tickets for the road games against Virginia. With Virginia working to improve their program standing, taking measures to create more of a home-field advantage makes sense.
The idea here is keeping access to tickets reserved for those who are supporting the football program through season ticket sales or donations. And if a Virginia Tech fan wants to buy a single-game ticket for the game, they’ll have to make a $100 donation to their rival school. Or those Virginia Tech fans could pick up a season-ticket package and sell off the remaining tickets they have no interest in. Either way, it will cost a little more to get to the game.
Virginia has lost 15 consecutive games to the Hokies with the last Virginia win coming in 2003. Virginia blew a 10-point lead in Blacksburg with 2:41 to play before losing in overtime, 34-31. The Virginia Tech win kept the bowl streak hopes alive for the Hokies, who officially kept their bowl streak alive with a win against Marshall the following week last season.