Drive for Five a Success for the Gamecock Club and Gamecocks

There’s no doubt that South Carolina fans are as excited as ever about their favorite Garnet and Black teams, and that is leading to a full-circle effect. Last year, the Gamecock Club launched its Drive for Five initiative with a goal of obtaining five thousand new members, while also retaining its current membership, and that goal has been reached, and then some, which means more resources can be put back into the Athletics programs for continued success.

“The Gamecock Club has had incredible success capitalizing on momentum, and we’re doing that through our membership services and personalized touches as well as data innovation,” said Wayne Hiott, Gamecock Club CEO/Senior Associate AD for Development. “We have exceeded our goal and added more than five thousand new members to the Gamecock Club in the last year. The overall success that the Gamecock Club has achieved put us more than one million dollars ahead in terms of revenue from where we were at this point last year. It’s tremendous.

“It shows that there is a lot of optimism around the Athletics Department and our sports programs. The reorganization that we did last summer where we basically doubled the Gamecock Club staff to focus on membership services and having a representative for every one of our members is proving to be something that helps us generate more revenue by building personal relationships with our membership.”

The success on the field and on the court across the board, including tremendous seasons from football, women’s basketball, women’s soccer, and now baseball has certainly energized the fan base, and additional incentives, events, and innovations have helped in the effort as well.

“Dan Stahl (Associate Athletics Director/Revenue Generation) and what he’s doing on the data side has been huge,” Hiott said. “We’re getting smarter in how we’re approaching tickets sales and memberships.”

“The addition of Gamecocks+ (which provides exclusive video content for Gamecock Club members) was a big help for us in furthering our member benefits,” said Kacey Garrity, Associate Director of The Gamecock Club. “Our addition of 5,000 new members has come from all of our membership types – Gamecock Club, Junior Gamecock Club, Student Gamecock Club, Young Alumni and Parent memberships. For example, we have historically done Boo at the Zoo, but this year we re-vamped that event into a bigger Gamecock-themed Halloween Party at Founders Park to amplify what we offer our Junior Gamecock Club members. The re-branding of The Cockpit (student section) created a lot of new Student Gamecock Club members as well. We have really pushed adding value to our memberships, and we have seen it pay dividends in a tremendous way.”

In addition to recently honoring members at the Spring Game on Saturday, the Gamecock Club will recognize their loyalty at the baseball game at Founders Park on Saturday, April 22 when South Carolina hosts Florida.

“We’re so thankful to all of our members, new and old, and how they have come together to support our student-athletes,” Garrity said. “Every member gets two free tickets for a game of their choice during the year, so they can use that here if that want. We’re doing discounted tickets as well for Gamecock Club members, and we’ll allow children of members to play catch on the field after the baseball game. We’re also doing (football) facility tours on April 23 for members.”

For more information about the Gamecock Club, click here.