Florida State's football season ticket sales, which have been declining every year since 2014, have slid into a free fall this offseason and will cost the Seminoles' fiscally challenged athletics department several million dollars.

According to numbers obtained by Warchant.com through a public records request, FSU is in danger of selling less than 25,000 of a possible 40,000 "main bowl" season tickets for the 2019 season. (Those numbers do not include tickets sold in suites or the Champions Club -- although those numbers appear to be tracking downward as well.)

If FSU finishes with 25,000 or less as expected, that would mean a drop of more than 7,000 season tickets --- more than 20 percent -- from last season's total, which already was the worst in several years.

With most season tickets selling for $330 apiece, that's a reduction in revenue of well over $2 million. And that doesn't include the millions of dollars in lost booster contributions, which are required to purchase those tickets, as well as residual losses in concessions and other game-day sales.

While daunting, the dropoff has not caught Florida State officials by surprise. The Seminoles are coming off of back-to-back sub-par seasons (7-6 in 2017 and 5-7 in 2018), and they've got a less-than-desirable home schedule this fall.

"It's a reflection of the last two or three seasons we've had, the schedule we have at home, and the attitude of this generation between 20 and 40 about going to live sporting events," FSU athletics director David Coburn told Warchant in a recent interview.

Indeed, season ticket sales are falling across college football, but Florida State's issues are exacerbated by the recent struggles on the field and the lack of marquee opponents coming to Doak Campbell Stadium, particularly in odd-numbered years when FSU plays rival Florida and Clemson on the road.

FSU's home schedule this year features non-conference games against Louisiana-Monroe and Alabama State, and ACC games against Louisville, N.C. State, Syracuse and Miami.

Coburn, who is in his first year in the position, is working to improve the non-conference scheduling for the future. The Seminoles recently announced a blockbuster home-and-home series with the University of Georgia in 2027-28, and FSU also will host Notre Dame in 2021.

But neither of those will help right now.

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To gain a clearer understanding of FSU's ticket woes, Warchant requested a snapshot of where season ticket sales stood on May 1 in each of the past five years.

As of May 1, 2019, Florida State had sold 23,424 season tickets for the main bowl. That means more than 40 percent of the 40,000 available season tickets were still available.

While that number will rise somewhat as the season approaches, history indicates that it won't increase by much. On May 1 of 2018, FSU had sold 31,111 season tickets; it finished that year with 32,030. One year earlier, the Seminoles sold 33,243 by May 1 and finished with 34,600.

So even reaching 25,000 season tickets this year could be tough.