EUGENE -- When new coach Willie Taggart and Oregon begin practices for the 2017 football season July 31, the preparation for their Sept. 2 season opener will intensify.



The same goes for UO's ticket office.



After selling 37,404 season tickets last season, Oregon had sold 35,643 as of Wednesday, down 4.7 percent, according to figures provided by the school. (UO sold a record 43,295 in 2011.)



"Our goal still remains to get at least to where we were last year," said UO senior associate athletic director Craig Pintens, who oversees ticket sales. "With that being said, we have a lot of work to do in the next six weeks."



Those totals do not include sales of UO's three-game "mini-plans." Last season, UO added the equivalent of 714 full season-tickets. This year, the equivalent of 1,312 have been sold, and that number will increase as the opener against Southern Utah approaches, Pintens said.



Compare sales of full season tickets in addition to their mini-plan equivalents from last season to now, and UO is currently a little more than 1,100 season tickets shy of matching 2016 levels. That gap will close some in the six weeks before the first kickoff at Autzen as sales traditionally see an uptick once UO begins fall camp practices, Pintens said. UO also believes its switch to Ticketmaster will help sell more tickets because of its visibility with potential customers.



"It's an attractive home schedule," Pintens said. "People are really excited about Oregon football and the direction that coach Taggart has it in. From that perspective, we have a chance to make that up. We just need to get on the phones and get advertising and make sure people know there's tickets available."



In college athletics, selling football tickets isn't just about filling a stadium -- as UO had done for 110 consecutive home games, until that streak ended last September. It's also about filling an athletic department's coffers, and balancing its budget.



Most of UO's revenue streams, such as distributions from the conference from its television rights deal, are constant and reliable. Football ticket sales, however, "are the one variable in your revenue that you can make an impact on during the year," Pintens said.



During the 2017 fiscal year UO projected ticket sales would account for 24 percent of all revenue for the department, and by far, the majority of that ticket revenue comes from football. Of the $26.9 million in ticket sales revenue UO expected to earn from all sports, $22 million was projected to come from football.



UO was 3-3 at home last season as part of a 4-8 record that was its worst since 1991, and while that didn't make selling tickets any easier this offseason, UO is also fighting larger issues when it comes to making its tickets attractive.



Television networks have announced kickoff times for only two of UO's seven home games so far, with the rest announced in the 12- or six-day windows before game day. The majority of UO's season ticket-holders come from outside the Eugene/Springfield area, Pintens said, and late kickoff times are a common complaint from fans leery of making a late drive home, or booking a stay at a local hotel with a two-night minimum.



"The viewing experience at home is only going to get better so that means we need to up our game and make sure the experience here is unparalleled," he said. "If we can find a way to do that we're going to continue to get people to come out."

Though UO makes more money per ticket on single-game sales -- season-ticket holders receive about a 15 percent discount on the value of a single-game ticket -- selling as many full-season ticket plans as possible remains UO's goal. To that end, it's offered various enticements.

Season ticket-holders will receive a $5 concession voucher; be invited to a second-annual "movie night" at Autzen Stadium in the coming weeks; and receive early access to the school's equipment surplus sale next spring.

There's also the price: The average renewal price of a season ticket in 2017 decreased by 3.9 percent and 65 percent of tickets are cheaper, while the other 35 percent have remaind the same, per UO.



Excluding other fees, single-game ticket sales range from $34 for an upper-corner seat to watch Southern Utah, to $129 for a sideline seat for the Nov. 25 Civil War against Oregon State.



The only home game not open for single-game sales is Nebraska, on Sept. 9. Short of purchasing a ticket on the secondary market, the only way to watch the Huskers is to buy either a full season ticket or three-game mini-plan. The game is considered UO's only sellout so far, though the school still has mini-plans and season tickets available for purchase.

That strategy has led several Nebraska fans to become UO season ticket-holders.



The CEO of a Lincoln, Nebraska-based travel agent told the Lincoln Journal-Star last week that he'd bought 104 full season tickets for Nebraska fans in order to see the game and expected some 20,000 Husker fans to be in Autzen.

While likely overly optimistic, that figure was still a telling indicator of the passion of Nebraska's fanbase, Pintens noted.

"Nebraska might travel better than anybody in the country," he said. "I don't think our fans truly can appreciate that. We've had some great traveling teams that have come here in the past, obviously. But not to the magnitude of Nebraska."

Behind Nebraska, the UO home game that is selling best is Utah, on Oct. 28, according to Pintens.

If there was a silver lining to the end of its sellout streak for UO, it was that if any fans had been turned off by the perceived difficulty of getting what had been one of college football's hottest tickets, the large swaths of empty bleachers seen late last season made clear that good seats were readily available.



"Certainly you never want to lose a streak like that," Pintens said. "It was obviously a testament to our fans. But if the result of it is people are now aware that tickets are available then we'll take it, because we still need to find a way to get sellouts."

-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com