Virginia Tech's 'Invest to Win' campaign puts the onus on you

Howdy, welcome to your Thursday FOIAball. Guess what? Tomorrow is my birthday! 

But I’m celebrating something even more exciting today: This is the 100th edition of FOIAball! 

I’m doing something tomorrow that I haven’t done in a long time: having friends over to watch a Virginia Tech game. I love hosting, but the last time I invited people to my place for Hokie football was September 2021. 

You know why; they’ve sucked! But not this year. They’re 4-0, playing Friday night at home. Under the lights in Lane Stadium! On my birthday! 

And I could not be happier for the fan base. They have been truly starved for something fun and exciting. The atmosphere, the vibe, it’s gonna be bonkers. Tomorrow night is everything I love about this sport. 

Which makes it extremely annoying that Virginia Tech has spent the week leading up to the game reminding me of everything I hate about the moment we’re in.

This week, the Hokies rolled out a new fundraising push. It’s great timing; the alumni buoyed by a month of actual wins. 

But the school is taking all that goodwill and doing the thing that’s making everyone so mad lately: putting the onus for successful football directly on the fans. 

The name spells it out: Invest to Win. It’s a fundraising push with an implied threat. Don’t, and see how bad it can get.

The school rolled out several initiatives as part of the drive. There is the Phileas Fogg-sounding Investors Society, which is a club that helps high-powered donors feel better about cutting big checks. 

And while that’s lame and dorky (“The Investors Society: Huzzah!”), what rankled most people was a change in ticket pricing. The school is junking everyone’s existing seats and starting from scratch.

The new arrangement is maddeningly convoluted, which makes sense, because it is modeled on how other big-time football programs sell tickets. 

Next season, every season ticket will cost $350. But each ticket comes with a required donation to Invest to Win.

Tech’s new AD justified the hike with a boast about operating with a new, top-ten mentality, which, naturally, requires top-ten resources. Next season, according to the school’s own estimate, Tech games will cost more than Alabama, Georgia, and Miami.

But the hike comes at a time when college football attendance has become something of national concern.

USC kicked off its season in front of a bevy of empty seats, which sparked a week of discourse about how Los Angeles has both football and beach, two things people can enjoy. Then a tweet about the startling cost of attending the Red River Rivalry made some folks oddly defensive. And this week, photos of empty seats at Penn State went viral as fans bemoaned the cost of attending. 

It’s true. Even the cheapest ticket is super expensive these days. But it’s not just that.

As the economy grows ever more K-shaped, it feels like every stadium is trying to tell you that going to a game with a regular old ticket is a stupid thing only suckers do.  

I was recently scrolling through a contract Texas had with one of its hospitality vendors. In it was the capacity for every lounge, club, and suite offering at DKR. I was kinda astounded by how much of the game day experience caters to those who can pay for it to be better. 

All told, the stadium has 10 high-end lounges and approximately 120 suites. Together, that’s premium space for over 10,000 people. 

There’s the Longhorn Lounge, the Touchdown Club, the Texas Club. You can get the “most unique premium experience” or “the best luxury space” or “the luxury of a suite and the amenities of a club.”

It used to seem like suites were kind of a novelty. Remember skyboxes? They existed, but what freaks would want to watch a game behind a glass panel?

Now, the undercurrent isn’t that it’s a luxury to spend more, but that the regular thing sucks. The food sucks, but you can pay for something better. The lines suck, but you can pay for shorter waits. The sun sucks, but you can pay for A/C. 

It’s happening everywhere: lounges at airports, VIP sections at concerts, priority booking for restaurants.

It feels like we’re living in a world where so many people think that something, simply by virtue of being good enough for almost everyone, means it’s actually bad and gross. And whatever, I don’t care what people think. But that mindset is the only one being catered to anymore; all the world’s time, money, and focus is going toward making things better for people who already have it really good. 

The rest of us get four fries in a cup. 

But hey, it’s almost my birthday! I don’t want to end this on a downer. Just because you’re broke doesn’t mean you can’t be a crucial part of the Hokie family.  

Virginia Tech’s also launched a partnership with Upside, an app that offers cash back on purchases like gas and groceries. 

Now, instead of saving a buck or two as fuel and food costs soar, you can give that meager subsidy to the school instead. 

“Every fill-up, meal, or grocery trip becomes another opportunity to invest in the future of Virginia Tech Athletics.” 

What the hell? I knew college athletics was in a dire state, but I can’t believe we’ve hit the “brother, can you spare some change” stage of fundraising. 

Like, there’s squeezing donors, and then there’s panhandling while running a nine-figure business. Don’t ask fans for the 48 cents they got by picking off-brand milk. Spend less on fireworks. It’s not that hard!!

Uhh, in conclusion, go Hokies.

Thanks for reading!! I’ll see you next week.

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