Utes ticket collectors just want something to hold onto as an era in college football comes to an end

The excitement that used to ripple throughout Jeff Dart’s house, and seemingly half of the state of Utah, about six weeks before the start of each college football season could be considered electric. And its spark was as simple as the mail carrier dropping a thick, manila envelope with the University of Utah return address on one fan’s doorstep.

Inside were Utes season football tickets.

“The tickets would come in your giant manila envelope in the mail and it would have this spiral-bound book and I’m sending pictures to all the people that we share tickets with,” Dart, a lifelong Utah sports fan, said. Anyone who hadn’t received their envelope yet — hadn’t gotten to waft in the smell of newly minted hope — he said would be on edge until their own package arrived.

This year, the experience is different.

“Nobody cares about a picture of the email I got three days ago showing me how to download [my season tickets],” Dart, 37, said. “Like, my friends don’t want that photo.”

Ticket stubs haven’t been just a way to get into the game for many Utah fans. Those swaths of colorful cardstock also handled the duties of hype machine, souvenir and, occasionally, wall art. This season, though, Utah is trading tradition for convenience by switching to paperless tickets for all athletic events.

The change has been a long time coming. Sports Illustrated published an article in 2013 that asked whether electronic tickets would one day replace the tangible tokens of entry that have been around for roughly two millennia. Eight years later, spurred in no small part by the coronavirus pandemic and the public’s demand for fewer touchpoints, that future appears inescapable. Movie theaters, museums, concerts, airlines and trains, plus nearly every pro sporting venue, now take paperless tickets.

That culture shift sits at the root of Utah’s decision to stop printing paper tickets, according to a spokesperson for the ticketing department. Going contactless while the Delta variant escalates COVID cases also has its appeal. And it can’t hurt that the university will be able to better track when fans are entering its stadiums and arenas, which in turn should allow it to create incentives to space out crowds and move fans through the gates faster.

One other advantage: It’s a lot cheaper to email tickets than to print, package and mail them. The ticketing spokesperson estimated Utah athletics will save “over $100,000.” While a large number on its own, it hardly moves the meter on the $32 million deficit athletic director Mark Harlan said his department is facing for fiscal year 2021.

Dart, who said he hasn’t missed a Utes home football game since 2002, appreciates many of the advantages of electronic tickets.

“I get an email that tells me, ‘Here’s a link to go get your tickets,’ all six home games at once, they’re all right there,” he said. “I can download them to my phone in a few seconds. I get why the athletic department vastly prefers that and ticket facilities prefer that, and some things are really convenient.”

Another benefit? He no longer will have to haul to Rice Eccles Stadium the big checkbook he used for stashing his stubs in to keep them pristine. But there’s also a reason he wanted them in top condition in the first place.

Sure, many of his tickets for Utah football, basketball and gymnastics ultimately get dropped into a storage box, rarely to be seen again. But when he does see them, they immediately transport him back to that exact place and time in his life. And the stubs to really special games, like the full set from the 2008 undefeated season and Sugar Bowl appearance? Those get framed and hung on the walls.

Colby Groneman, 34, of Elk Ridge gets it. He has been collecting Utah season tickets in football, basketball and gymnastics since he was at least 14.

“It’s just like the joy of having, like, a physical ticket,” he explained. “Like, I know friends and family that keep like movie ticket stubs, you know?”

Groneman also collects the ticket stubs of anyone else he attends games with. Over the years, that has added up to thousands of tickets. So, when Utah’s 2020 football season was hacked down from a 10-game, Pac-12 only schedule to a total of five games, none with fans, he decided to do something with them.

So, he separated out an estimated 400 tickets by color, metallic sheen and imagery. Then, he began to cut them, forming them into an intricate collage in the shape of the Utes’ drum-and-feather logo. (He said he preferred to re-create the interlocking U logo, but the tickets didn’t have enough red).

The art piece garnered admiration from many a Utah fan when Groneman posted it on social media. Several contacted him to tell him he inspired them and to get tips on making their own. He has bad news for them.

“I’ve had some people reach out to me and a couple of people are like, ‘Oh, now I’ve got to save my tickets. This is what I’ll do with all my ticket stubs,” he said. “… And now I look at it like, ‘Oh, sorry. You’re out of luck.’”

Neither Groneman nor Dart — nor most people they know, they said — want to see physical tickets fade away. If it simply comes down to expense, both said they would be willing to pay extra to receive hard copies of their season tickets. In fact, Dart said he already often selects that option with Ticketmaster when he buys concert tickets.

There’s just something, he said, about holding a game ticket in his hand that makes the entire experience a little more believable. And this season, with cancelations from COVID or poor air quality or any number of disruptions seemingly hanging in the wind, all season ticket holders really want is to believe — just as they used to do each July when the mail carrier dropped a thick manila envelope on their step.

“To some people, I’m sure that sounds like a worthless event,” Dart said of anxiously awaiting his season tickets. “But it’s something that was exciting and fun and you’re holding something. It made football more real.

“And this year, especially, I would like something that makes football feel real. ‘Cause I’m still not convinced.”

Salt Lake Tribune reporter Josh Newman contributed to this report.