FAYETTEVILLE — For the second consecutive season, Arkansas has sold a record number of baseball season tickets.
The Razorbacks' 6,350 season-ticket sales are an increase of 7.1 percent over last season's total of 5,929, which was a record at the time.
Arkansas also has distributed about 400 complimentary season-ticket packages for members of the team's official party, such as coach and player family members and athletics department staff, bringing the total number of 2019 season tickets disbursed to more than 6,700.
The Razorbacks are coming off a runner-up finish at the College World Series last season.
"We picked up a lot of fans, I feel like," Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said Thursday.
This year's home schedule includes series against three teams ranked in the preseason - No. 1 LSU (May 9-11), No. 10 Ole Miss (March 29-31) and No. 15 Mississippi State (April 18-20).
The Razorbacks also are scheduled to play Arkansas-Little Rock on April 2 and Arkansas-Pine Bluff on April 16 in the first-ever games against in-state competition.
"There will be some good games for the fans to come out and watch," Van Horn said.
Baum Stadium has a listed capacity of 10,737, which includes a first-come, first-serve area on a grass berm beyond the left-field wall. Season tickets are still being offered in that area, but no more season tickets are being sold in areas with chair-back seats.
There will be 600 seats sold for each regular-season game through "mini-plans" or to walk ups. Those tickets are not being offered as season tickets because of the potential for the Razorbacks to host a regional or super regional in the NCAA postseason. Hosts must reserve 200 tickets per visiting team in the regional round and 600 tickets for the visiting team in a super regional.
"The requirement to hold tickets for postseason play would mean that if we sold additional season tickets we wouldn’t be able to accommodate all season-ticket holders if they chose to buy tickets for regional and/or a super regional," UA spokesman Kevin Trainor wrote in an email. "We want to be able to accommodate all of our season-ticket holders in postseason play."
Ticket sales remained strong despite an increase in ticket prices this year. All season-ticket packages were sold for $250, a $25 increase over what most buyers paid a year ago. Some buyers saw a steeper increase because of the elimination of a grandfathered senior-citizen rate of $175 that had not been offered to new buyers since 2010.
Some tickets require a donation to the Razorback Foundation that is not factored into the listed price.
The cost adjustment will create fairness among prices throughout the stadium, athletics director Hunter Yurachek wrote in a letter to ticket holders last fall.
Arkansas reported a 90 percent retention rate during the fall sales period that ended in November. Additionally, there was no turnover in the stadium's 32 suites, where tickets were increased by $200 apiece to between $1,250 and $1,350.
There has been no turnover in the lease of the suites for 10 years and the area has a waiting list of more than 40 potential customers, according to figures provided by the athletics department.
Strong ticket sales helped Arkansas turn a profit on baseball in its 2018 fiscal year, with $6.1 million in revenue and $5.1 million in costs.
“Not many baseball programs across the country can say that,” Yurachek said. “Now we have three sports — football, men’s basketball and baseball — that are turning a profit.”
A previous version of this story first published in Hawgs Illustrated