Man, if you got 4 decades worth of watching BYU Football live and in person... that's an amazing accomplishment. But unfortunately demand is sky high and some are willing to pay more now for the product. BYU is financially self sustaining... the program doesn't get a dang cent of money from the church, if we did we'd be at Texas level. So yes, the program is going to make more money from being in the conference and getting more money from TV and conference sponsorships, bowl money, etc. But that doesn't mean that BYU should be cheap when it comes to ticket's for their home events.
With that said, I'm with you on what has BYU done to improve the quality of atmosphere and games. In my opinion, if BYU is going charge ticket prices that are equal to the bigger programs in the conference, by dang they had better be "keeping up with the Joneses" in facilities, administration and recruiting and coaches. I know that I just committed the great Mormon sin by asking for us to not be cheap and to improve the quality and resources we have... but honestly BYU is stacking themselves upon a house of cards if they don't start doing this stuff and doing it now. The demand for tickets won't last long if we keep rolling out the same product on the field with little to no improvement. It's going to take major facility upgrades to attract athletes to BYU, and it's going to take a major recruiting budget and administration to bring these kids to BYU. If BYU isn't willing to do this starting now... then I foresee that the demand will end really fast.
Now is the not the time for BYU and the church to be afraid of being to gaudy. People need to be replaced if that is their fear.... yes I'm looking at you Holmoe and Santiago. You want to see donations dry up really fast, I dare you keep talking about how you're not going to keep up with the Joneses. That will be the biggest and dumbest decision that they could make, especially when the upgrades and changes made in the last 40 years have been minimal at best.
BYU and the church should have the biggest and most state of the art Strength and Conditioning and Nutrition program in the country. If we are going to practice what we preach about the word of wisdom, this should be a no brainer. It makes not a lick of sense for BYU and the church to not be throwing a crap ton of money and resources at something like this which benefits the church, the athletes and demonstrates that we do practice what we preach.
We have so my LDS kids out there that are worthy of D1 scholarships and the fact that we are spending so little on recruiting resources is shameful and disgusting.... it's reeks of arrogance to be honest. Again, this should be a no brainer... we should be having one of the best recruiting teams at our level. Stop being arrogant about this and do the dang work and put in the finances to make it work. This is so dang dumb.
And our facilities are all out of date... we just recently brought the Marriot center out of the dark ages. Stop dragging the feet on this and being arrogantly stubborn... this is again, a no brainer.
BYU really does have to do more and do better now... raising the ticket prices is fine, but BYU had better meet the demand and go above it... or that demand will fall apart very quickly.