Georgia miffed about nosebleed seats for Georgia Tech game

ATLANTA - Add another chapter to the bitter football rivalry between the state schools: Georgia is miffed about getting mostly nosebleed seats for this year&#39;s game at Georgia Tech. <br> <br> Georgia learned Thursday that its 8,500-ticket allotment for the Nov. 29 game at Bobby Dodd Stadium includes only 785 seats in the lower level, said Freddy Jones, the school&#39;s associate athletic director for ticket operations. <br> <br> Most of those about 450 will have to be used by the band, leaving 335 lower-level tickets for Georgia fans. <br> <br> ``For the first time since I&#39;ve been here and I&#39;ve been here 20 years they&#39;ve moved all our fans to the upper deck,&#39;&#39; Jones said. ``There is not another school that we&#39;ve ever played that has worked out this sort of arrangement. It&#39;s very unusual.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Two years ago, the Bulldogs received 3,985 lower-level tickets for the game at Bobby Dodd Stadium, which seated about 41,000 at the time. This year, with a stadium that has been expanded to 55,000, Georgia Tech decided to put nearly all of Georgia&#39;s allotment in the upper deck. <br> <br> Scott McLaren, director of ticket manager at Georgia Tech, said the Yellow Jackets were hoping to improve their chances of winning by keeping Georgia fans further from the field. <br> <br> Last season, the Bulldogs routed Georgia Tech 51-7 at Sanford Stadium in Athens. <br> <br> ``We think with the reconfiguration of the new north end zone, we&#39;re doing the best we can to give our team a competitive and home-field advantage,&#39;&#39; McLaren said. ``From our experience when we&#39;re on the road, we get very few tickets in the lower level. We&#39;re up across the top of the stadium as well.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Even so, Georgia fans figure to scoop up many of the new seats at Bobby Dodd Stadium, which seated 43,719 last year after the first half of a two-phase renovation project was completed. <br> <br> With an even-larger stadium, the Yellow Jackets have sold about 21,600 season tickets for this season, McLaren said, a drop of 6 percent with the team coming off a disappointing 7-6 performance in 2002. <br> <br> In an attempt to fill all those new seats, Georgia Tech is trying to promote its team beyond the traditional fan base. <br> <br> ``It&#39;s more to the sports fan,&#39;&#39; McLaren said. ``We did a mailing to anyone who may have bought a ticket from us in the past. Our ticketing system is completely automated. If you bought a ticket from us three years ago, we know what you bought.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Some of those mailings have ended up in the hands of Georgia fans, raising the embarrassing scenario of Tech&#39;s stadium being filled with red and black. <br> <br> It was for that very reason Georgia Tech reduced the capacity of Bobby Dodd Stadium in the mid-1980s. The facility once seated nearly 60,000, but was often half-filled with fans from the visiting team. <br> <br> ``At some point, that is a concern,&#39;&#39; McLaren admitted. ``Once your main, loyal fan base has bought their season tickets, now you&#39;re giving everyone else a chance to purchase the seats that are left over.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> McLaren said Georgia Tech is trying to lure the marginal fan who may have trouble getting tickets at schools such as Georgia or Auburn. Both of those teams are playing in Atlanta this season. <br> <br> The rest of Georgia Tech&#39;s attractive six-game home schedule includes Clemson, North Carolina State, Maryland and North Carolina. <br> <br> ``The Atlanta Falcons are going some great marketing,&#39;&#39; McLaren said. ``People who were never interested in the Falcons have now experienced pro football. What we&#39;re trying to do is turn them on to the college football experience. <br> <br> ``With our schedule, we think this is the best opportunity to get new fans and new support. In the local area, people who are not able to go up to Athens or over to Auburn because they&#39;re sold out may buy our season tickets. We can get new fans in our base.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> On July 1, Georgia Tech will begin selling a three-game ticket package that includes Georgia, North Carolina and Maryland. It goes for $89, compared with $186 for a full season ticket package. <br> <br> Again, Georgia fans who have to donate hundreds of dollars for the privilege of buying season packages at Sanford Stadium will have a low-cost option for landing coveted tickets to the Georgia Tech game. <br> <br> ``I can&#39;t deny that it doesn&#39;t come up in the back of your mind,&#39;&#39; McLaren said. ``But in today&#39;s economic times, there are people who can&#39;t afford $186 for six games. Now they can come to three great college football games. We kind of think it will balance itself out.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Georgia has been inundated with requests for the Georgia Tech game, returning more applications than it was able to fill. Jones asked the Yellow Jackets to increase the allotment to 10,000, with the understanding that Tech would receive the same number of tickets for the 2004 game at Sanford Stadium. <br> <br> Georgia Tech declined the offer, McLaren said, because it didn&#39;t want to lose seats that might be purchased in the three-game package. <br> <br> Meanwhile, Georgia is seething about the location of the tickets it will get. <br> <br> ``It&#39;s going to create a lot of hardship for a lot of our older fans, there&#39;s no question about that,&#39;&#39; Jones said. <br> <br> Asked if the Georgia Tech&#39;s fans can expect to get similar treatment in 2004, he replied, ``Certainly, we will fulfill our obligation to give them comparable seating.&#39;&#39;