Sabins Recognizes Insane Ticket Prices for Regional, Says It's Time to Add More Seats

Who would have thought that 20 years ago, West Virginia baseball would become so popular that its eventual new stadium wouldn't be quite big enough to seat a good chunk of the fans who attend a game?

Throughout the regular season, that hasn't always been the case because of the cold weather early on and whatnot, but this weekend is a whole other story.

West Virginia is expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 fans for tonight's regional matchup against Binghamton, as well as every other game the Mountaineers play this weekend. Many of them will have standing room only tickets, either sitting on the grassy knoll or lining up above the two hills at the edge of the concourse, looking out onto the field.

“I know it’s sold out. It’s packed," WVU head coach Steve Sabins said. "I’m seeing on StubHub and Seat Geek tickets going for $2,500. I think it’s probably about time we build more seats here, clearly because there’s people that want to watch this baseball team that aren’t able to this go around. It’s part of the process of growing a program and building something special — you have to win, and then you have to drum up that excitement for those things to happen. As this program continues to build, I just look forward to what’s in store here because we have not reached a ceiling. We haven’t gotten close to a ceiling. There is better days ahead for Mountaineers baseball.”

Obviously, this is a problem, but it's a good one to have. A non-revenue generating sport is driving excitement and a new level of interest. Really, since Randy Mazey came to Morgantown and turned the program around, fans have been hopping on the train left and right, and with the team's recent success reaching four consecutive regionals and two supers, the buy-in is at an all-time high.

So, could expanding the seated capacity at Kendrick Family Ballpark happen soon? Maybe.

WVU athletic director Wren Baker just stated last week, “Generally, if a project is not revenue-producing, we’re not tracking on it very much right now." And even with what is expected to be an exceptional turnout this weekend, I'm not sure that will change Baker's mind. Every dollar is precious, and it has to make sense.

The stadium does not have this problem throughout the regular season, so expanding it would only fix the issue in the event that a regional is played there or when Pitt comes to town. At some point, crowds will be much bigger on a regular basis as the program continues to grow, and perhaps if the schedule eventually gets moved to later in the spring, as Randy Mazey had always vouched for.

But all that being said, I wouldn't completely shut the door on more seats being added. If a generous donation comes through specifically to make it happen, then yes, Baker and WVU will begin that project.

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