Florida State softball joins growing trend of charging admission

Although you'll be able to watch the defending champions in Tallahassee this year, you'll no longer be able to do it for free.

Florida State announced Monday that it would be charging admission for all home softball games. 

With the announcement, softball becomes FSU's fifth athletics program to charge admission for its games, joining football, men's and women's basketball and baseball.

"This journey has been such a wonderful opportunity of growth – for FSU softball, our game of fastpitch and female sports in general," FSU coach Lonni Alameda said in a statement Monday.

"Our success, not only recently in NCAA and ACC Championships, but throughout our storied history has proved the value of FSU softball and that it is worth charging for."

Seating in the section directly behind home plate at FSU's JoAnne Graf Field has only been available to members of the FSU Softball Dugout Club at a season ticket price of $200 since 2017.

That will remain the case this season, but the general admission seating in the grandstands down each baseline -- previously free of charge for all regular season games -- will now require purchased tickets.

Stadium seating capacity is 1,000. 

General admission seating in Sections 1 and 3 will be available for a season-ticket price of $125 or single-day price of $5 for adults and $3 for children.

The JoAnne Graf Classic (Feb. 8-9) and Unconquered Invitational (Feb. 22-23) will both be $10 single-day tickets.

Over 28 regular-season games last season, FSU's average attendance was 923. If FSU duplicated that number this season and each of these people bought season tickets, it would create a revenue of $115,375 for the university.

Former FSU softball coach JoAnne Graf agreed with the decision to charge for home games, saying revenue is needed to further strengthen the program. Graf also would like to see future renovations include expanded seating and roof coverage. 

To help put the decision in perspective, Graf pointed out that most high school softball programs charge for games. 

"I think it's a valuable product," said Graf, who became the first collegiate softball coach in the country to earn 1,400 victories before retiring in 2008.

"It's good competition, entertaining and it's worth people playing. One of the criticisms of women's programs has been is that they never raised revenue. If you want teams to raise revenue, you have to be allowed to raise revenue. It's a good decision." 

In truth, FSU is a little late to this trend.

Fresh off their first NCAA Championship in program history last June, the Seminoles join a prestigious list of programs that charge for tickets.

Dating back to softball becoming an NCAA-recognized sport in 1982, each of the 13 teams that have won national titles now charge admission for their home games.

FSU's prices of $200/$125 put them squarely in line with many of these other top-tier programs.

Florida charges $200 for its best seats and $150 for season tickets down each baseline.

Some programs, like four-time national champions Oklahoma, charge more. The Sooners charge $250 for their reserved seating and $150 for general admission season tickets and $15 and $10 for single-day tickets.

Alabama, meanwhile, charges $150 for its chairback season tickets and $85 for season tickets in the bleacher section.

While many of these championship programs hail from stacked softball conferences such as the SEC, Big 12 and Pac 12, FSU is the first ACC team to bring home a national championship.

The Seminoles have won six consecutive ACC regular-season championships and five straight ACC Tournaments, essentially running the conference for the majority of this decade.

However, FSU is not the first ACC program to charge admission to its softball games.

Notre Dame offers a $50 season ticket that is good for admission to all home softball and baseball games and sells single-game softball tickets for $5 for adults and $3 for seniors and children.

North Carolina State also sells softball season tickets for $50 for adults and $25 for seniors and children. Single-game tickets are available for $7 and $5.

FSU's 2019 home slate includes 36 regular-season games at JoAnne Graf Field including a pair of home tournaments, a midweek matchup with UF and ACC series against ND, N.C. State, Boston College and Duke.

Season tickets are available at www.seminoles.com/tickets. Single-day tickets will be available online for each game that month on the first day of the month, beginning with all February games on Feb. 1.

The Seminoles begin their title defense at home Feb. 8 vs. UNC Wilmington in the Inaugural JoAnne Graf Classic.

Florida State vs. UNC Wilmington

Inaugural JoAnne Graf Classic

When: Friday, February 8th, 3 p.m.

Where: JoAnne Graf Field