For the first time in years, Furman has sold all available tickets to a home basketball game.
Well, at least all the school is willing to make available.
The capacity of Timmons Arena is listed as 5,000, but the school sold less than 3,000 tickets for Saturday's home game against Davidson and declared a sellout.
That's because about 2,000 seats are blocked off by curtains and unavailable.
Timmons Arena was a White Elephant for basketball the day it opened. Terrible sight lines and seats at long distances from the court are common.
When South Carolina came to play Furman several years back, I paid $17 apiece for three seats. Once I got there, I found out they were bleacher seats -- no backs, the kind that can be pushed back against a wall -- and we had to watch the game from a terrible angle through railings with people constantly walking in front of us.
I vowed never to buy another ticket to a basketball game at Timmons, and I've held true to that pledge.
I was considering breaking over and going to see Davidson and Stephen Curry play, but my work schedule won't permit it.
I know Furman did some remodeling to try to make the arena more palatable, so maybe things aren't quite as bad as they may have been.
There's obviously some demand for additional seats for the Davidson game. Why doesn't Furman remove the curtain for this game to get some more revenue?
According to Furman's Web site, single-game basketball ticket prices range from $3 to $11, based on age and seat location. If Furman were to sell 2,000 more tickets at an average of $5, that's an additional $10,000 in revenue -- plus concession sales to the additional fans.
Is Furman's athletic program in good enough shape financially that it can ignore the prospect of an additional $10,000 to $15,000? If I were a moneyed Furman booster, I'd remind the school of that the next time it came calling with its hand out.
