Just a couple of days ago, head coach Fran Brown announced that Syracuse will be offering discounted tickets to the Orange’s season opener against Ohio to fill up the JMA wireless dome. The school is dubbing the effort ‘Operation Pack the Dome’. Along with the plan to try and encourage fans to show up for week one, SU also announced different “theme days” throughout the season to motivate supporters to pack the house.
Tickets for SU’s season opener can be purchased for as little as 15 dollars a piece if purchased in a group of 15 or more. Discounted tickets in the lower bowl are topping out at just under 500 dollars.
It’s not just the opener that is seeing the discount, Syracuse also announced that they will sell discounted tickets for the regular season finale against UMiami on November 30th. As of right now, seats for the game are ranging from just under 50 dollars to just over 575.
These discounted tickets show that Brown and the athletics department are serious about building an atmosphere that is tough to play in for visiting squads this year.
Brown already set the record for most fans ever at a Syracuse spring game with over 16,000 tickets sold. Yet, attendance was down last year compared to 2022.
In 2023, the Orange averaged nearly 34,000 fans per game, down from the approximately 40,000 fans in 2022. That dip in attendance year to year measured in at a 16.6% decline, the worst in the ACC. Nationally, the 16.6% fall came in at the seventh worst between 2022 and 2023.
While those numbers might seem alarming, the dome held nearly 49,000 people before the renovations this offseason. Now, the capacity sits at just between 42 and 43 thousand. That means if Brown can get the dome rocking like it was in 2022, the Orange will have a nearly sold-out stadium every game.
The season opener is still just over two weeks away, but if Syracuse wants to find real success at home this season against teams like Miami and Virginia Tech, it’s going to need a sold-out crowd behind it.
