STEP UPDATE: March 30

There are still 16,204 seats available as of tonight at 10PM.  There was little movement in the overall numbers this week, with a shift from lower donation levels to higher donation levels.  This is to be expected since only NLC members with a lot of points can pick right now.  They are the ones that presumably want to improve their seat location or add seats to their account, and can afford to do so.

 Anne Danahy of the Centre Daily Times writes that ticket sales are down slightly.

Assistant Athletic Director Greg Myford said the Nittany Lion Club membership is just above the 20,000 mark so far. In 2011, there were 22,474 members, up from 21,577 in 2010.

Overall donations are up by $900,000 compared with last year for a total of $16.3 million, Myford said.

They can sugar coat the numbers all they want, but the reality is that there are about 4,000 more tickets available right now than there were in June at the end of the selection process last year.  Four thousand seats were given up.  All ticket holders have the option of retaining their seats, so even if they plan on moving up or down, their seats would not currently be listed as available.  And any move of equal seats from one giving level to another, wouldn't change the total of available seats.  The only factors that could see that number decrease are if people decide to ADD seats to their current package, or new members who never had seats before choose later in the process.

You might think that $900,000 in higher donations would reflect a profit.  But if you do the math . . .  at $385 per seat for a season ticket, times 4000 empty seats . . .  that works out to $1.54 million dollars in lost revenue if those seats aren't sold.  And that doesn't include the extra donation level fees for those seats that are lost if they go unsold.  Obviously, for many of the more attractive games, e.g. Ohio State and Wisconsin, those seats will get sold individually with no problem, so the overall math is fuzzy at this point.

Anyway, here is the breakdown after a week of trading:

SECTION	Donation	Seats Available	Seats Available	Seats Available	Delta
		6/8/2011	3/23/2012	3/30/2012
WB	$400	232	270	275	5
WC	$400	25	159	88	-71
WD	600-2000	41	180	145	-35
WE	600-2000	12	9	5	-4
WF	600-2000	37	200	142	-58
WG	$400	18	143	106	-37
WH	$400	302	339	371	32
WJ	$100	6	131	55	-76
NA	$100	18	172	163	-9
NB	$100	38	200	195	-5
NC	$100	40	207	229	22
ND	$100	36	171	189	18
NE	$100	48	193	199	6
NF	$100	17	178	181	3
NG	$100	35	176	188	12
NH	$100	30	167	175	8
NJ	$100	35	208	216	8
NK	$100	36	173	205	32
NL	$100	39	207	213	6
EJ	$100	14	101	102	1
EH	$400	518	428	434	6
EG	$400	60	165	162	-3
EF	600-2000	73	182	134	-48
EE	600-2000	0	1	1	0
ED	600-2000	389	249	199	-50
EC	$400	283	247	247	0
EB	$400	148	108	92	-16
WBU	$100	0	30	8	-22
WCU	$400	477	581	585	4
WDU	$600	652	721	727	6
WEU	$600	303	361	368	7
WFU	$600	596	708	723	15
WGU	$400	318	489	491	2
WHU	$100	1	102	48	-54
WJU	$100	25	147	132	-15
NAU	100-400	48	111	93	-18
NBU	$100	53	56	72	16
NCU	100-400	121	107	107	0
NDU	100-400	94	93	107	14
NEU	100-400	105	142	128	-14
NFU	100-400	40	82	90	8
NGU	100-400	65	80	94	14
NHU	100-400	78	51	53	2
NJU	100-400	126	113	111	-2
NKU	$100	1	0	0	0
NLU	100-400	1	8	4	-4
EJU	$100	31	265	309	44
EHU	$100	9	138	126	-12
EGU	$400	1067	1153	1198	45
EFU	$600	882	985	1011	26
EEU	$600	762	877	855	-22
EDU	$600	1444	1422	1414	-8
ECU	$400	1541	1526	1534	8
EBU	$100	2	68	56	-12
SAU	$100	88	117	115	-2
SBU	$100	154	100	110	10
SCU	$100	125	109	123	14
SDU	$100	106	119	129	10
SEU	$100	26	42	42	0
SFU	$100	16	36	28	-8
SGU	$100	17	57	51	-6
SHU	$100	87	118	122	4
SJU	$100	79	100	113	13
SKU	$100	113	95	99	4
SLU	$100	101	117	117	0
TOTAL		12284	16390	16204	-186	15%
100		2104	4887	4897	10	30.22%
400		4989	5608	5583	-25	34.45%
600+		5191	5895	5724	-171	35.32%