Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

The good news for Arkansas Razorback fans is that they've bought every seat available for the Alabama and LSU games in Fayetteville this football season. Arkansas fans recognize college football powerhouses and will turn out en masse to see their Hogs play them. And that's about it.

Out of eight games being played in state, the Hogs are batting .250 right now in sellouts. For Fayetteviille and the 72,000-seat Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium, it's a better-sounding .333 average — Baseball Hall of Fame material, to be sure, but lackluster in Southeastern Conference football attendance figures.

Mississippi State, by the way, which has a 55,000-seat stadium that's about to be enlarged again, is enjoying a run of sellouts the past two years under fourth-year coach Dan Mullen. Every game has been sold out, and the same is expected this year. This is with a schedule that also includes two Sun Belt Conference teams and a SWAC program coming to Starkville. The Bulldogs haven't beaten any team in the SEC West other than Ole Miss in Mullen's three seasons, but that doesn't stop the State fans from planning to turn out large and ring their incessant cowbells.

But enough about one of the divisional dregs.

The 10th-ranked team in the nation, according to the preseason coaches poll, and a program fresh off an 11-win season with two Heisman Trophy candidates on offense can't sell out all its games, even the two scheduled for 55,000-seat War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

No, Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long won't be lining up the sure-fire sellout game for Little Rock in scheduling Arkansas State for War Memorial Stadium, now or anytime soon. But Long believes his program ought to be good enough to sell out War Memorial no matter who the opponent might be.

He told me that last year, when at least 2,000 seats went unused before the second game of the season, against New Mexico. One ugly clump of vacancy was situated right behind the south goal posts.

"The fans should be wanting to see THEIR team," Long said, dismissing any notion of a low-caliber nonconference foe keeping sales down.

I surmised, based on discussions with some fans who attended the tailgating on the War Memorial golf course that Saturday, that Arkansas had not done enough to let fans know tickets were available. That's basically what was heard over and over: "I didn't know they had any more tickets left."

Long begged to differ. He said the UA marketing department had done more than they'd ever done in the past to alert fans to ticket availability.

I can't disagree with him on that fact this year. I see or hear the advertisements with Chuck Barrett talking about $120 ticket packages being available in Little Rock at every turn. (I don't need to know it; my family has already purchased our usual four tickets — and I'm only mentioning this for the commentators who blast the media's opinions on lack of ticket sales, saying that the media doesn't grasp the cost involved with attending. Oh, yeah, I do.).

Arkansas plays Louisiana-Monroe and Ole Miss in Little Rock this fall. The LSU game was the regular Little Rock SEC appearance for the Hogs in even-numbered years until Long switched that out this year. In a 55,000-seat stadium in the SEC, that shouldn't matter. Yet, you can bet it will for some fans, who will claim they chose not to buy tickets to see the Hogs in Little Rock because the LSU game was moved.