The Limestone County Board of Education voted unanimously Aug. 13 to increase the price of adult tickets for all county athletic events during its regularly scheduled meeting at the Clinton Street Courthouse Annex.
All adult tickets for county football games will increase from $7 to $10, and all adult tickets for the other sports will rise from $5 to $8. All student prices will remain the same as previous years at $5.
The price increase, which was created to generate additional revenue to support the rising cost of school athletics, will begin this school year. It will affect all fall and spring semester sports including; basketball, baseball and softball games.
“We’ve tried to keep those prices as low as possible for the last several years, but with the cost of officials and security rising rapidly — we needed to do something to help cover the cost,” Limestone County Schools’ Superintendent Randy Shearouse told The News Courier.
Shearouse said that last year, the school board gave each high school within the county $15,000 to help alleviate the growing issue. Despite that money, a majority of their schools still struggled to match the high asking prices of each athletic event.
During the work session portion of the meeting, Shearouse said that the school board may have to look at giving more money to each school this year. Shearouse emphasized that the board made the decision after careful consideration on ensuring the sustainability of their athletic programs.
Russ Cleveland, the athletic director for Limestone County Schools, approached the board during the work session on Tuesday to bring their attention to the growing issue.
“Hopefully, a lot of our sports won’t be in the red anymore, but this issue has become so prevalent,” Cleveland told The News Courier. “We’ve tried really hard not to adjust ticket prices, and we’ve begun to depend on fundraising, but even that is barely covering the fees. In the last two years alone, from referees, umpires and security, we’ve seen a 40 percent increase in their cost.”
Cleveland emphasized that the athletic programs do not exist to make large profits, but they do need to make enough to support each program at every respective school. He specifically mentioned athletic trainers, who are most times the first responders to medical situations for athletic events, as being a necessity that has continued to increase in prices.
“We aren’t trying to make a huge price hike or anything like that, but we needed to do something to provide for our programs,” Cleveland said. “We are trying our best to stay on the low end of prices, and we don’t want to deter anyone from coming but we need to be able to operate. If you look at all the counties surrounding us, they’ve all gone up in ticket prices, so we are just now getting up to them.”