Demopolis High football parking to benefit other sports

Demopolis High School has found a way to supplement its non-revenue sports through the football program. The institution will charge $5 per car for parking this season with those funds being utilized to assist smaller athletics programs.

“We didn’t want people to show up at the game and then be shocked and surprised that we’re charging for parking,” Demopolis Principal Blaine Hathcock said. “It’s something that we see in the vast majority of places that we go. People are charging for parking. All of that is not going to football. We wanted to include a lot of our non-revenue sports like tennis, golf, soccer, volleyball, track. There’s a lot of non-revenue sports and we wanted to give them an opportunity to be profitable on Friday nights.”

In addition to the $5 parking charge, game tickets are set at $7 each week and a $50 season pass is available that includes a “chair back” seat in the stadium. Membership in the Demopolis Quarterback Club includes prepaid parking.

“The biggest impetus for doing that is for a couple of reasons, obviously to maximize as much as we can financially out of Friday night, but also to have a way to include our non-revenue sports to help them to become more profitable,” Hathcock said. “We have a significant amount of sports that are completely non-revenue and don’t charge any admission.”

The Demopolis football program opens its season Friday, Aug. 25 at Thomasville before holding its first home game Friday, Sept. 1 against Greensboro.