Boulder – Three months before the start of the football season, Colorado has renewed 75 percent of its season-ticket holders from a year ago, athletic director Mike Bohn said Monday. That’s about 15,000 renewals. CU’s goal is to hit 21,000.
“So, we have a lot of work to do,” Bohn said.
CU’s drop in season tickets sold made news last week when it was revealed at a university budget retreat in Durango that sales had fallen from 26,000 three years ago to 20,000 last year. The 2005 number, however, was slightly up from 2004 because of 1,000 season tickets purchased by boosters to give to kids as part of CU’s Ralphie’s Kids Roundup program.
“It helps us with the overall number,” Bohn said. “But we’ve got to do a better job of reaching out and encouraging people to be a part of (football).”
Coors construction
Facilities upgrades at the Coors Events Center have been delayed because of a lack of funding, Bohn said. Construction work to move the men’s and women’s basketball coaches’ offices from their current perches at Folsom Field as well as to add video rooms and a new weight room in the arena was scheduled to begin this summer. It has been pushed back to the fall, at the earliest.
“We’re continuing to raise money for it,” Bohn said. “Our current policy for construction and facilities upgrades is once the cash is in hand, we have the ability to go.”
The basketball offices would be on the second level, where the conference rooms are. The weight room will be on the court level, just west of the locker rooms.
“Basketball is a serious challenge,” Bohn said. “Either we want to do something about it or we want to continue to say, ‘It’s a football school.’ I think Ricardo (Patton) has proven over time that we can be a basketball school, and we have some good, fundamental structures that we need to do more of. It starts with getting the operations center complete.”
Bettering basketball
Bohn said his 10-point plan for improving basketball at CU will be announced soon.
“We’re waiting on some funding solutions on some of them, but we’ll probably roll those (plans) out regardless of having those, soon,” he said.
Chris Dempsey can be reached at 303-820-5455 or cdempsey@denverpost.com.
