When Dan Radakovich first mentioned a possible student donation to secure one of the 9,000 lower bowl seats to Memorial Stadium on April 12, he said all he needed was the backing of Clemson President James Clements and the University’s Board of Trustees.

Things have changed.

Radakovich told The Clemson Insider on Sunday if Clemson is to ask its students to donate $225 to secure a ticket, then it will have to get the approval of the board of trustees.

“That changed for the better. When you have circumstance where you have never done something, then sometimes processes don’t exist. With this there was no real functional process to go about doing this. I give our board credit,” Radakovich said.

“I really looked at this as a real positive step.”

So have the students, where more than 9,000 signed a petition to stop the athletic department from holding their tickets, which have always been free. The students and the athletic department met on April 13 to better discuss a proposal Radakovich can send to the BOT for approval when the board meets again in July.

“It went very well,” said 2015-’16 Student Body President Shannon Kay. “It was one of the first times we have kind of really engaged both sides and laid out a plan to work together to meet the needs of athletics and to meet the designs of the students.

“I guess from a student’s perspective, I think it was pretty clear from social media and the petition, getting the number of signatures that it did, that students do not want to have to pay for tickets right now. I think that is something we are really trying to work through, but obviously, we need to generate the revenue that selling tickets would generate.”

Kay confirmed the athletic department has approached and discussed the subject of a student donation for the last 24 months. She personally sat in on four of those meetings. As Kay said, the April 13 meeting was the first one where the students felt as if they were more involved in the process. She said the students have to thank the Clemson University Community, alumni and fans, for jumping in and lending their support.

“It was definitely great to have that support from people who were former students. I’m sure some of them are involved in IPTAY,” Kay said. “To have them come back and say, ‘it was a critical part of my Clemson Experience’ and something they want to continue, I think it definitely helped get the message out there and engaged on, not just how the students are feeling, but how the Clemson Community is feeling.”

The athletic department is hoping to create more revenue by asking students, who wish to sit in the lower bowl of the student section, to pay for a guaranteed season-ticket to all home football games.

The cost is $225 per season, and would be paid through IPTAY’s Collegiate Club. The plan could generate an extra $1.8 million dollars for the athletic department, which could help pay for a number of things.

“We had been discussing various plans with the students for about 24 months. It was not something where we rolled out of bed one day and said this is something we would like to do,” Radakovich said. “We actually did start with a fee a while back and that was something that did not gain a lot of traction. So we listened to the students and they said it is probably better based on a user circumstance.”

The idea of an IPTAY contribution to guarantee a ticket came from the way Clemson University charges students for a health fee that some students don’t use. The athletic department wanted to make sure that students who did not attend football games were not charged for a ticket.

“In using that as a comparison, we said, ‘Let’s look at the stadium. How can you help become a part of the revenue production in the stadium?’ Right now, we can only sell about 65,000 seats in the stadium, because the students’ 12,000 are free,” Radakovich said. “We kind of pulled together more groups and talked about it and said if we do a season donation to IPTAY, because IPTAY has the Collegiate Club, it would not be a ticket, but it would be a donation.

“One of the perks at being at that level, just like you get various perks at being at the Howard Level, the Fike Level, the Riggs Level and the Heisman Level, will be a season ticket to football games. That donation would be a part of that.”

Understanding not every student would be able to contribute to the Collegiate Club, the athletic department’s plan was to continue to put a number of free seats in the upper deck.  About 3,300 tickets that are in the upper deck will still be free, and the 9,000 for the lower deck and the Hill would be used for some type of donation to IPTAY.

“You are never going to find everybody gathering hands and singing Kumbaya because they are now paying for something, but what it has done over the last couple of weeks has really focused the discussion,” Radakovich said. “I think the students really understand that we are the only public school in the ACC, SEC and Big 12 that does not have a student fee or no money going into a purchase of a football ticket. We are the only one.

“If we want to continue to create the products and have the type of (football) experience and success that we have had, we need to be able to utilize our football product to be able to gather additional revenue. So we are continuing to have conversations with the students.”

Kay says the students take pride in the fact Clemson is still the only school that does not charge a student fee for athletic department events. She says it’s one of the many things that make Clemson special or different from other schools.

“From strictly a financial standpoint, (the athletic department has) definitely demonstrated that need,” Kay said. “But, I think, to your point kind of regarding, being the only school that is not paying for tickets, something we have been hearing from a lot of people, is that should be something to be proud of and not a reason to start charging for student tickets. So I think there are underlying factors as well playing into all of this.”

The athletic department and the students plan to meet again later this week as both parties try to come to a solution or a compromise that best serves all involved.

“Our board has told us before anything is finally approved that we need to go back to them and tell them this is what our plan is. We will gather our folks together. We will talk about it. We will see exactly what is most important to them,” Radakovich said. “I’m very sure (the students) understand the issue we are dealing with and how we have to create that revenue. Hopefully, we come to a meeting of the minds between ourselves and our students and we present that to our board and see if they accept that.”