Alabama Democratic Party

Hubbard, chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, says he's never used the total of 6,564 tickets each season as leverage in politics.

"Not with those tickets," he said. "We give them away as season tickets to advertisers. We used to have to buy them through the athletic department, but now we include them in the (broadcast) rights fee."

Along with the football tickets, valued at $188,715, come 100 prime parking passes near Jordan-Hare Stadium for each Auburn home game.

Over the past decade, as schools have learned with food service, campus bookstores and other services, they have earned more money by contracting most or all of their sports marketing.

In most contracts, the sports marketing firm, ISP at Auburn, pays the university a guaranteed annual rights fee, then tries to recover its money - and more - by selling ads and sponsorships.

The Times recently reported that Alabama and Auburn together this fall gave away more than $100,000 worth of free football tickets to elected and appointed state and federal officials.

The ISP contract also requires Auburn to provide Hubbard's company each year with 225 tickets for every men's basketball game and 150 tickets for each women's basketball and baseball game and women's gymnastics meet.

Hubbard's company also received 50 tickets from Auburn to the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta.

Hubbard and ISP also receive from Auburn the use of three luxury skyboxes and six seats on every commercial jet charter that Auburn uses for road football games and three for road basketball games.

But Hubbard said all of the tickets and the skyboxes are reserved for the sponsors that support Auburn athletics.

The suites, which normally are configured to seat 12 people at $2,000 per seat for regular paying customers, are reserved for clients, said Hubbard, although Gov. Bob Riley sat in one of ISP's suites during the first half of one of Auburn's home games.

"The governor came to my suite during first half of the homecoming game," Hubbard said. Riley was at the Nov. 3 Tennessee Tech game to crown the homecoming queen at halftime, then left.

Even though his company controls a large block of Auburn tickets, Hubbard said ISP could use more.

"We actually had to buy some from scalpers for the Alabama game."

Compared with 547 football tickets that go to Auburn's ISP affiliate, the University of Alabama's ISP affiliate, which just signed a contract with UA, will receive 250 football tickets per game from Alabama under its new deal.

Alabama ISP will get 140 men's basketball tickets, compared with 225 for Auburn ISP, and 52 tickets for women's basketball and baseball game and women's gymnastics meets, compared with 150 each for Auburn ISP.

Like Auburn ISP, Alabama ISP will also receive 50 tickets to Alabama bowl games. In addition, it will get 50 tickets to SEC football championship games, 30 tickets to men's or women's SEC basketball tournaments, 10 tickets to basketball regional games and 50 tickets to NCAA Final Four games.

No set number of parking passes are specified in the Alabama contract, but it says "an adequate number" of parking spaces should be reserved for its workers.

In addition, Alabama ISP will not have access to any luxury suites at Bryant-Denny Stadium or seats on commercial charters.

Mike Alford, general manager for ISP Sports at Alabama, did not return repeated telephone calls from The Times seeking comment on the Alabama contract, and the university did not provide a spokesman for comment.

Under the $51.3 million contract extension that was signed in April 2006, Auburn's guaranteed annual rights fee will rise 138 percent to $5.7 million annually, starting in 2008.

Alabama's contract, which will become effective July 1, 2008, will provide UA an average of $7.58 million annually through 2017-18. In the final year of its old contract with ISP, UA is receiving $2.98 million.

Since Alabama signed its marketing contract in 1998, it has been amended annually. In its final year, Alabama is due to receive $2.98 million, or 40 percent of annual gross revenue, from Winston-Salem, N.C.-based ISP's marketing of Crimson Tide products.

In Alabama and Auburn's case, ISP has a branch office of a half dozen people or so to produce and edit the coaches' shows and game broadcasts, provide on-air talent, create the school's athletic Web site, line up sponsors, sell commercial time and in-stadium signs and print game-day programs. This frees school officials to sell tickets and raise money.

Hubbard had owned the broadcast rights for Auburn athletic events through the Auburn Network, but he sold his company in 2003 to ISP and became ISP's Auburn president.

Some universities have been able to gain more than just sports marketing through outsourcing.

In its contract with Host Communications, for example, the University of Tennessee got a 10-year deal in July that boosted its annual rights fee by 168 percent to $6.8 million a year.

In addition, Tennessee will get $15.4 million in capital improvements, such as an electronic, or LED, billboard at Neyland Stadium and LED equipment at Thompson-Boling Arena.

Hubbard said Auburn was able to purchase a $2.9 million high-definition scoreboard for the Jordan-Hare Stadium south end zone through its contract with ISP Sports.

The video display is the first true HD video display in the SEC and measures about 30 feet high by 74 feet wide and takes advantage of the latest HD-12 LED technology.

In addition, Auburn ISP was required to purchase two 200-foot-long LED boards that were installed on the middle band of the east and west fascia of the stadium. Auburn also put up $1.16 million for a new north end zone scoreboard.

Alabama's contract contained no language addressing capital improvements.