PROVO — For decades at Brigham Young University home football games, BYU students have sat directly behind the Cougar team bench in the stadium's east stands.
Next season, BYU students will have to scream louder to have the football team hear them. As part of a seating shuffle to offer high-priced tickets at the LaVell Edwards Stadium and increase athletics revenues, student seating will be on the end lines and in the end zones.
"There is nothing worse than getting stuck in the nosebleed section, having to yell from the top," said Matt Smith, a receiver on the BYU football team. "I'd rather have students yelling behind us than have the quiet people right behind the bench."
BYU men's athletic director Val Hale announced in February that BYU will remove a block of 2,700 bleacher seats in the stadium's east stands.
In its place will be 1,700 chairs seats, billed as extra wide and boasting legroom. Tickets for the premium chairs cost $1,000 apiece and are for Cougar Club members only. The change drops Edwards Stadium seating capacity from 65,000 to 64,045.
Also, students will pay $85 — up $10 from last season — for an all-sports pass. The pass provides tickets to home football and basketball games as well as other varsity sports.
At some other universities, students get seats near the action for less money.
Students at the University of Arizona, for example, pay $35 for a season pass to Wildcat football games. They sit directly behind the Wildcats' bench in Arizona Stadium, which seats 56,500.
"Sitting the student fans down by the field where the team can hear them is real important to our team," said Arizona head football coach John Mackovich.
For years, Arizona students have paid a low rate for prime seats, said John Perrin, senior associate athletic director at Arizona.
"They (students) are your most vocal, noisy fans and your most avid in making noise," Perrin said. "We want them (students) right down there where players can feel that emotion."
Oklahoma University students pay $85 per season tickets and sit behind the Sooners' bench at the 70,004-seat Memorial Stadium. And at the University of Memphis, full-time students are admitted free — part of their tuition and fees are automatically diverted to the athletic department — but sit between the 20-yard line and the end zone on the Tigers' side.
On March 4, BYU administrators and Cougar Club members gathered to ceremoniously remove the first bench from the east-side stands.
For the past several months, BYU athletics officials have pitched the new seating and ticketing plans, with two options available. Both options require ticket purchasers to make sizable donations to the Cougar Club.
The first option — called Legacy Club Seating — allows fans to buy $1,000 season tickets in section 34, between the 35-yard lines, where 1,000 seats are available. Only "Gold" level Cougar Club members — those donating an annual minimum of $1,000 — are allowed this option.
Perks include reserved parking and express post-game traffic routes, game program, access to a VIP hospitality area and an invitation to a preseason barbecue.
Option two — Cougar Club Seating — offers a seat in sections 33 or 35 between the 25- and 35-yard lines. These tickets are $500 each, and the buyer must be a "Silver" Cougar Club donor, which requires a minimum annual donation of $500.
Some BYU students feel that they are getting the raw end of the deal.
"For the students to get involved, the end zone view is terrible," said Jeff Bullock, a BYU student from Houston. "We (students) are poor. It makes me furious. They think we'll do it (buy higher-priced tickets) because they think our parents will pay for it. Mine won't."
Hale said BYU didn't make the change to move students but rather to boost athletics funding toward national norms.
"The bottom line is if you look at who we play the next two years at home — Stanford, Georgia Tech, USC, Notre Dame — if we plan to compete with those teams, we must have the funds to do so," Hale said.
The changes to Edwards Stadium are expected to increase this fall's football revenues by $1 million. BYU's $20.4 million operating budget is the lowest of the 21 intercollegiate teams in the 2000-01 Sears Director's Cup, which rates the overall success of university athletic programs.
Hale cites comparison numbers: Ohio State has an athletics budget of $72 million, while Stanford's is $31.1 million. And "ticket premiums" — premium seating and accompanying perks made available at top prices for financially set fans — brings in $23 million at the University of Tennessee and $8 million at Stanford.
"We're asking our fans to be big-time fans," Hale said. "They can't expect us to operate a big-time program without the funds. We receive no tithing funds (from the LDS Church). We are self-sufficient. We have to raise our own revenues."
Students will have to be big-time fans from the north and south end zones of Edwards Stadium, while the football team will have to make do with its students farther away from the Cougar bench.
"Fan energy always helps," BYU senior cornerback Kip Nielson said." The crowd just gives you extra emotion to go on and get the win. It (moving students) doesn't sound like a good idea to me."
E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com