Chris Del Conte on visitor seating, the future of the Longhorn Network, and more related to Texas' conference move

On3 imageby:Steve Habel02/24/23

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Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte conducted a virtual town hall on Feb. 20 to update fans, donors and other interested folks on the success of the Longhorns’ programs across the board, about what’s on the immediate horizon and what happens when Texas joins the Southeastern Conference on July 1, 2024, a year earlier than originally planned.

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Del Conte said that once Texas (and Oklahoma) become part of the SEC, visitors’ seating – well, at least 2,500 seats of the total allotment – will be in the lower bowl, ending the practice of exiling bands to the upper-deck at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium.

“Yeah, we’re in the process of trying to figure out student seating,” Del Conte said. “The move to the Southeastern Conference requires 2,500 tickets to be in the lower bowl. In the Big 12, you can put the visitors tickets upstairs. But our team is now looking with the best way to do it.

That presented an issue the Longhorn AD has yet to full figure out.

“Do we do a pull ticket or just general admission? We will continue to figure out ways to make it work,” Del Conte said. 

“Safety was always an issue. We will be unveiling that next in 30-40 days once we meet the student body president. They weighed in heavily on this last go around. We’ll make sure that they’re always involved with this as well.”

There was a discussion about if Texas sports normally broadcasted on the Longhorn Network will be broadcast on the SEC Network when the two are melded. 

“When we go on SEC Network, we’ll be able to not only produce our own content, and as many games as we can produce, they’ll be put on ESPN+ or on the SEC Network,” Del Conte explained. “So all of our games that we’ve been accustomed to watching on the Longhorn Network will be on those platforms. 

“The goal the first year is to make sure we get all the infrastructure in place but we believe that the 175 live events that we have at home will still be covered, whether it be ESPN, ESPN+ or on the SEC Network.”

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Del Conte and his team have led the charge to lower concession prices at Texas athletic events and he was asked if some of his initiatives, such as “happy hour” pricing, would continue with the move to the SEC.

“Oh yeah, for sure,” he answered. “I’d like to roll-back even more and the idea was to continue to find rollback pricing across the board. We’re going to meet this spring about all of our concessions, all of our offerings, and try to figure out more and more savings.”

Finally, Del Conte addressed potential changes to Texas football’s non-conference schedule now that the Georgia and Florida games will be part of the league schedule. The Longhorns have contracts signed to play a home/away series with the Bulldogs in 2028-29 and an away/home set with the Gators in 2030-31. What will happen to those games hasn’t been announced yet.

“My goal every year is to have seven home games at DKR to try to create incredible value for our fans and for the city of Austin,” Del Conte explained. “So if we go to an eight-game (SEC) schedule, that’ll change our philosophy a little bit. But if we go to a nine-game SEC schedule we are always going to look to at seven home games. Once we know what that looks like, it will help us determine our future schedules.

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