As early as Dec. 7, just days after Auburn beat South Carolina in the 2010 SEC title game, Auburn officials were quoted in news stories explaining that the school’s 17,000 tickets provided by the Fiesta Bowl were spoken for — as the university doled out tickets to donors using a priority list, and also to students, faculty, staff and the band.
Longtime, big-time donors had been limited to one BCS game ticket per top-level season ticket purchased in 2010. Requests for additional tickets by several donors, including at least two in the top 50 of Auburn’s priority list, were turned down, leaving them to search the secondary market and scalpers to find a seat.
Fast-forward nearly four years to last November. The Wall Street Journal, after an exhaustive look into Auburn’s ticket practices and the financial management of a program that had lost $866,000 in 2013, published a story recounting the odd and complicated manner in which the AU athletic department sells tickets.
Included in that story is one sentence that ignited a mini-firestorm among Auburn’s top-level donors: “(One donor) … also had purchased 60 tickets to Auburn’s win over Oregon in the January 2011 national-championship game in Glendale, Ariz.”
Among groups of longtime donors, that sentence became the topic of conversation.
Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs acknowledged that it prompted one donor to set up a meeting just so he could ask questions about the 60-ticket purchase. On fan message boards, the rumors began to swirl.