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http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080713/SPORTS030104/807130337/1097/SPORTS HATTIESBURG — The first game is scheduled for Aug. 30, but Southern Miss officials hope to have enough construction finished for tenants to get a look at the M.M. Roberts south end zone expansion project on Aug. 23. Advertisement "Everybody is committed to making that happen," said Joel Lucero, major projects coordinator for the USM physical plant. "We're told there is no exception for not getting it done." A total of 34 luxury suites are included in the $31.5 million project, with two set aside for USM president Martha Saunders and athletic director Richard Giannini. The rest of the boxes have been leased to local companies and financial supporters of the athletic department. The suites come in three different sizes with the majority of them holding seating for 28. All of the boxes feature room for 10 or more seats inside, while chairback seating outside varies from 18 to 24 or 32. # The 18-seat suites are leased at $26,000 a year. # Suites with 24 outside chairs go for $28,000. # Luxury boxes with the largest number of outside seating of 32 are $31,000 a year. Five-, seven- and 10-year leases were sold for the luxury boxes while three-, five- and seven-year deals apply to club level seating. Tenants will pay the lease on a yearly basis. Four times a year, the luxury boxes will be available for the tenants to use outside the football season. The outside facade of the expansion is basically complete, with only the windows left to put in place. The majority of the work remaining is internal with the finishing of walls, doors and putting down the carpet. clarionledger 7/13/08

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/sec/2008-07-10-gas-prices-attendance_N.htm Last fall, Reginald Bowens had plenty happening. Between an impending marriage and the good fortunes of the football team of his and his fiancée's alma mater, Jackson State, there were many reasons for the 200-mile drive from his Memphis home to Jackson, Miss. "This year, it'll probably be two road trips," Bowens said. "Just because of not really gas prices, but everything else around gas has went up, with food going up and that type of stuff." Therein lies a question athletic department administrators are asking: Will the recent economic downturn and spike in gas prices affect just how wide fans open their wallets to support their favorite schools, especially when football season starts next month? The national average for unleaded regular gasoline as of Thursday, according to the American Automobile Association, was $4.10 a gallon. For a car that gets 30 miles a gallon, that would put the cost of gas for a 350-mile round trip, such as one from Jackson to an Ole Miss football game in Oxford, at about $47. FIND MORE STORIES IN: Tennessee | Memphis | Mississippi State | Chattanooga | Oxford | Ole Miss | Houston Nutt | Jackson State | Starkville | Automobile Association Drive a 15-mpg SUV? Double that. Drive a recreational vehicle, the ones that make mini-communities at many schools for game weekends? Get out a calculator and take a deep breath. "For the first time, I'm researching places to leave my RV in Starkville rather than driving it back and forth during football season," Duff Sudduth of Madison, Miss., who regularly takes his RV to Mississippi State home games, wrote in an e-mail. Factor in the gas to run his generator through the weekend, and he's looking at $200 for fuel alone. But because of the fun of the football weekend with longtime friends, Sudduth said he doesn't plan on stopping. Mississippi is offering three, three-game ticket mini-packages, two of them costing $60 and another $50. The school didn't mince words as to why, citing "gas prices and a struggling economy" in the first sentence of a news release. USA Today 7/12/08